Lancelot Andrewes’ catechism (A Pattern of Catehistical Doctrine) on the second table contains an enlightening argument regarding such degrees between men, and the consequent manner of their love. Andrewes’ argument consists of two parts. The first part argues communion with God as the necessary precondition to brotherly love, and, therefore, any concern to the neighborly good of others first impinges upon our personal reconciliation to God. Once we have this peace, a greater unity can then be entered amongst men by the mutual bond of Christ Jesus. Andrewes outlines the order of these conditions:

It is certain there are degrees; for to omit our duties to our parents is worse than to omit the same duties to a stranger. Now where there is a greater duty, there must be a greater affection, and so greater love; and the order of our love must be thus,
a. To God, for He is that bonum, ‘good’, by the participation whereof all other are bona, ‘good;’ and to which all other give place, as in polity to   bonum publicum, ‘the public good’.
b. Our own souls, for we are unitas, ‘an unity’, or one entire in and with ourselves, and cannot be but united with our brethern.
c. The souls of our brethern before our own bodies; for any man’s soul may directly be partaker of the universal good which is in God, but so can no man’s body but by participation with the soul, and therefore the soul is to be preferred. (p. 172)

Hence, once the eternal needs of man’s soul are met, then the temporal aspirations in right order follow, starting with our bodily well-being. Andrewes ranks outward ties:

“d. Our own bodies before other men’s
e. The bodies of our neighbors; and among them:
      first to them that have need; and of those:
      first to the household of faith, Gal. vi.10; and of them,
      first to our countrymen, ps. cxxii.8, “brethern and companions”; and of these:
      first them which are nosri, “our friends and acquaintance,’ and of them,
      first to our own, and, namely, them of our household, 1 Tim. v.8, and our kindred; and
      first the wife, Gen. 2.24, “they shall be one flesh;” “am not I better to thee than ten sons?” 1 Sam. 1.8.
Thus much the subject of our neighbor. “(p. 173)

Recall, Andrewes’ argument begins with the existance of God—and communion with Him as the very substance of neighborly love. Egalitarianism tends to reverses this order making communion with God ancillary or a secondary to universal brotherhood. Not only this, but modernism also displaces the immediate and natural obligations of man for an abstracted “bodiless” mankind that has no necessary ties to either person, spouse, or family. Notice the degrees posited by Andrewes are in contradistiction to egalitarianism—i.e., 1). first, the dressing and feeding of our body, 2) then our spouse, 3) then providing for our children, 4) caring for extended family or ‘kindreds’, 5) friends and those we know, 6) compatriots, and, 7) finally, our church. Notice outward ethics, or the second tablet, really depend upon concentric relations and living these out. The reverse would otherwise make a man a louse, commanding him to love the extraordinary over the familiar. Also, we might suppose the church (#5) is further ordered between degrees of ecumenical, province, and parish since what wreck the greater church would be if all her individual local parts were in destitute?

Some implications to consider: If degrees of love exist, then do degrees of hate also exist? Andrewes reminds us, “every sinner, as he is a sinner is to be hated; every man, as he is a man, is to be loved: let us love men so that we love not their sins, and love them for that which God made them, not that which by sin they made themselves”. So, perhaps hate varies, following kinds of transgression, and the hatred of sin is really pastoral implying a range of discipline according to the offense. Likewise, if love has measuring upon the earth, then why doesn’t it also have a measure in heaven? Such ideas suggest the church as an ordered society rather than a primitive, unformed mass or assembly. We see perhaps something similar with Mary as the mother of God and John as the most loved disciple—the bonds of spousal, kindred, and brotherly affection lasting or descending from the heavenlies. Andrewes’ exposition on the second tablet reminds that affections should have right ends, as God would have it, “So that our love must be toward neighbor, not as always it is towards ourselves, but as it ought to be; nor as an evil man loveth himself, but as a man’s heart well regulated affecteth his own self.” (p.176)

The degrees of love was a common understanding in the 17th century. Here is a near verbatim quote on “the method and order of love” in Bp. William Nicholson’s A Plain and full Exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England, 1655 (pp.102-3), written together with the Reverend Jeremy Taylor. Nicholson notes how Godly love is impartial yet effected through degrees of proximity, and this seems consistent with own mandate for mission:

1. That we love God first and most. The high priest carried the name of God on his head, but the names of the Israelites on his breast-plate and shoulders. That great and fearful Name must be in the highest place; the love super-eminent we bear it; and then for God’s sake it must descend to our neighbor, as the breast-plate and shoulders. Ex Deo natalis amoris, ‘Love’s birth is from God’.
2. The next step is, that we love our neighbor, i.e., every man, be it a friend, or be it an enemy. If a brother, there is in him proximitas originis, a nearness of blood; if an enemy, proximitas naturae, or scietatis, a nearness either in nature in general, or some bond of civil society.
Now in this love of our neighbor, heed would be taken of two things:
1. That our love be not erroneious, that we take not our neighbors’ sin for our neighbor, and love their sins because we love their persons… “Thou shalt rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him” [Lev. 19.17]
2. That we look to the degrees of proximity, and accordingly extend our love before another, as they stand farther off, or are nearer unto us. And the order is this:
  1. The nearest conjunction among Christians is that of the Spirit of grace, of religion, and these are to have the first place in our love. “Do good to all men, but especially those who are the household of faith” [Gal. 6.10]
  2. Among these, if there be no disparity, then those first who are nearest unto us either in friendship, blood, or some other way.
  3. After, as they stand nearer or farther in relation.
    1. The husband or wife. Parents.
    2. The children, and those of the family.
    3. Our kindred.
    4. Our friends or acquaintance, near neighbors.
    5. Our countrymen.
    6. Societies of men before any particular. But this is not perpetual, and may be broken by many accidents, and intervenient occasions.

If there be no disparity in faith, then family relations take priority over universal man. Note: kin and kith (tribe) fall between the family and countrymen.

Where several states form a close union as a result of origin,location and intercourse, unity of development cannot be absent. e.g. in Greece. What differences between cities and tribes, what antagonism between Dorians and Ionians! What contrast between Athens and Sparta! Yet there was a Greek nationality; and it would be possible to show that those diverse tribes, landscapes and localities all contributed — not just by imitating each other but also through their own proper development — to the progress, stagnation and decline of the national life.

And would there not likewise, after the fall of the Roman Empire, have been unity and coherence among the European states, a European nationality? There was unity of origin (through the melting or dwelling together of the barbarians with the inhabitants of the Roman domains); unity of development and vicissitudes (resistance to the continual migrations of nomadic peoples; feudalism; crusades; rise of the towns; recovery of royal power); unity of learning and culture (chivalry; the influence of Antiquity; the universal use of Latin); unity of religion (with respect to it, common participation in every change).

Especially the last three centuries. Thus Heeren is right in calling his work a History of Europe’s Political System and Political Association (preface, v; p. 18). (general criterion) Visible everywhere is the intermeshing or crossing of interests; shared turbulance and strife; the parallel development of learning, of culture; the diffusion of the same principles and ideas; even the blurring of the separate nationalities, so that Sterne compares them to worn-off coins. On what, then, would the hypothesis rest that the revolutionary current was proper well-nigh exclusively to France?

History confirms this reasoning.

Kinism is not an ideology, it is a life force arising out of the memory and investigation of the neglected traditions of our fathers, those pre-modern traditions that more closely resembled the mutual understandings of the ancient Western church. As such, there is a diversity of views on what degree of consanguinity and cultural resemblance constitutes an equal yoking of partners, and the conditions for stable, peaceable national existence. What is clear is that there has occurred in the geopolitical entity referred to as the United States a specifically national disintegration that violates any reasonable understanding of these conditions, and the result has not been the development of a post-national life, but strife, enmity, and mutual suspicion arising out of the violation of natural barriers, accumulated over ages. While it is also clear that national life is something that is in the eye of the beholder, that is precisely the point, and why Kinism insists on the principles of self-determination and voluntary association, incorporated into the U.S. Constitution, dedicated to the posterity of the people, and not the involuntary social engineering of governments and economic elites.

The quote below is taken from Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism -Six Stone Lectures: Calvinism in History (pps. 29-30 [65-66 in the PDF pagination]):

In China it can be asserted with equal right that Confucianism has produced a form of its own for life in a given circle and with the Mongolian race that form of life rests upon a theory of its own. But what has China done for humanity in general, and for the steady development of our race? Even so far as the waters of its life were clear, they formed nothing but an isolated lake. Almost the same remark applies to the high development which was once the boast of India and to the state of things in Mexico and Peru in the days of Montezuma and the Incas. In all these regions the people attained a high degree of development, but stopped there and, remaining isolated, in no way proved a benefit to humanity at large. This applies more strongly still to the life of the colored races on the coast and in the interior of Africa; a far lower form of existence reminding us not even of a lake but rather of pools and marshes. There is but one worldstream, broad and fresh, which from the beginning bore the promise of the future ; this stream had its rise in Middle-Asia and the Levant, and has steadily continued its course from East to West. From Western Europe it has passed on to your Eastern States and from thence to California. The sources of this stream of development are found in Babylon and in the valley of the Nile. From thence it flowed on to Greece. From Greece it passed on to the Roman Empire. From the Romanic nations it continued its way to the North-western parts of Europe, and so from Holland and England it reached at length your continent. At present that stream is at a standstill. Its Western course through China and Japan is impeded, meanwhile no one can tell what forces for the future may yet lie slumbering in the Slavic races which have thus far failed of progress. But while this secret of the future is still veiled in mystery, the course of this world-stream from East to West can be denied by none; and therefore I am justified in saying: that Paganism, Islamism and Romanism are the three successive formations which this development had reached, when its further direction passed over into the hands of Calvinism; and that Calvinism in turn is now denied this leading influence by Modernism, the daughter of the French Revolution.

And further… from pps. 30-31 [68-69 in PDF pagination]:

From the high-lands of Asia our human race came down in groups, and these in turn have been divided into races and nations; and in entire conformity to the prophetic blessing of Noah the children of Shem and of Japheth have been the sole bearers of the development of the race. No impulse for any higher life has ever gone forth from the third group.

Thus far, the historic doctrine is established, that national existence is properly based in natality, and that polity is established on this ground. This is the ancient and venerable doctrine. But here, Kuyper, like many immediate pre-moderns, goes astray, and, following the siren of eugenics, asserts that inter-mixture of blood is the harbinger of progress, and not of decline. Kuyper’s objection, then, is not to tribal, or racial, intermingling, but, like a true eugenics advocate, Kuyper only approves of the right blood to inter-mingle. The logical conclusion of the doctrine is one that lies unstated in Kuyper’s exposition, but is undoubtedly the inevitable conclusion. While he clings to the notion that this inter-mixture of blood brings in the beneficent characteristics of foreign types, he neglects to factor this principle in the the very decline (via modernism’s caricature of Calvinsm) that he decries. We then, after establishing the historic doctrine, enter realms of the specious with the importation of modern follies:

(Page 31 [68])

Thus on the one hand there are groups which have dominated exclusively their own inherent forces and on the other hand groups which by commingling have crossed their traits with those of other tribes, so having attained a higher perfection. It is noteworthy that the process of human development steadily proceeds with those groups whose historic characteristic is not isolation but the commingling of blood. On the whole the Mongolian race has held itself apart, and in its isolation has bestowed no benefits upon
our race at large. Behind the Himalayas a similar life secluded itself, and hence failed to impart any permanent impulse to the outside world. Even in Europe we find that with the Scandinavians and Slavs there was hardly any intermingling of blood, and, consequently having failed to develop a richer type, they have taken little part in the general development of human life.

This, of course, is nonsense, given the evidence we have of advanced navigation, metallurgical arts, mythology, and other signs of high civilization from the Scandinavian “race”. Kuyper here seems to conflate the imperial/progressive/gnostic impulse with the “advance of humanity,” and in doing so confuses materiality for spiritual and cultural development, knowledge for being. The relative isolation of the Mongolian, and the infusion of its developments into classical Chinese culture through the dominance of its elites, while failing to “advance humanity,” nevertheless attained a very high level -a level in comparison to which the modern Western malaise would appear to be a decline, on the basis of its refinements in the arts, in political character, in nobility. Further, Kuyper’s views fail to take into consideration contemporary (to him) advances in historical analysis, made by scholars such as Tenney Frank, that mark the decline of Greek and Roman culture to their respective imperial periods, during which the importation of foreign stock as domestic slaves, and inter-mixture with them, immediately preceded the historical symptoms of cultural decline and eventual dissolution. 

The sole egress from this dichotomy is the frank denial of decline, at which point the doctrine of advancement through commingled blood is shown to be hollow, and dependent on a false view of human “progress” that is equally flawed. In this Rushdoony departed from the view of his intellectual mentor, and departed from a novel “orthodoxy” that had secreted within it several of the presuppositions of the dogmas it would deny: namely those of the French Revolution, and the boon wrought by the unqualified “brotherhood” of man. Kuyper’s goal in these lectures is to free Calvinism of the guilt for, and the taint of, the French Revolution and its ideals. In doing so, he uses intellectual materials tainted by this very disorder, and undermines his case in a way that Van Prinsterer, before him, had not done.

The Prayer to be said for a Women with Child is found in Elizabeth’s 1578 Book of Private Prayers. Within the prayer is a distinct theology of the woman, containing two interwoven themes: 1. an account of the fall; 2. the labor which the seed of the Woman continues in, though marred with suffering, remains the cause by which we beg God’s help. Kinists might have a special curiosity for the 1578 prayer not only because it gives wonderful insight into Augustinian theology, but especially because it explains the post-lapsarian lot by which male headship is re-instituted. We might say Kinism stands upon the earliest ordering of man and woman, namely, the first division of mutual society by which external hierarchies occur. 

Related to the 1578 prayer are those prayer book rites that further bless the domestic—such as marriage, churching of women, and infant baptism. Here, the predicament of first corruption is retold within the liturgy where the women often has peculiar blame for trespass, persuading the very cause of her humility and her re-asserted need for male headship. Anglican liturgy and articles also seem to convey a more physical, rather than merely legal, notion of original evil where transgression is additionally infused in a fleshly manner, passed on by maternal issue. Several themes are at work which have implications to kinism, namely, why society is not composed of equal parts, and how the work of sin is not just legal but by the flesh. Starting with the 1578 prayer, it reads:

“Thy wisdom and power shine forth in all thy works, O Lord; but yet much more great, more manifest, and more wonderful are they, in the shaping of man. Of how small beginning dost thou make so marvellous a living thing, shedding a soul into it, whose original is from heaven, to the intent he should long to return thither, as into his country.
And now, that thou hast vouchsafed to make me, as it were, thy workhouse, wherein to fashion so singular a work, I most humbly and heartily thank thee, beseeching thee, that, as thou hast given me ability to conceive, so thou wilt give me strength to the perfecting of the thing that is in breeding, that I may safely both bear it and bring it forth. Truly thou, O merciful Father, hadst of thine own goodness made this work of child-bearing easy; but our sin hath made it sorrowful, and full of danger.
O most gracious workman, let thy pitifulness amend the thing, which our sinfulness hath marred, and either abate my pain, that I may not have need of so great strength, tendance, and cunning; or else, increase my strength, power, and courage that I may be able to overcome all the pain of my travail. Amen”

The prayer begins describing the beginning of man which is not of the woman but from heaven, namely, his soul. And, like the gift of a soul, so is the ability to conceive since God, though infinitely greater, is also the maker of life. Conception itself was likely part of paradise, but the fall from innocence marred it. Life still passes through the creature, however, but the child-bearing of the woman now has a dual character: 1. she suffers due to Edenic transgression, “our sin hath made it sorrowful”; yet 2. she is the object of the promise of children by God’s grace, “perfecting that thing that is in breeding”.  These two events work together to establish a greater hope—that life is not of woman yet it may be counted in what is superior to her, namely, God. And, the Fall makes the searching His mercy urgent, “let thy pitifulness amend the thing which our sinfulness hath marred, and either abate my pain…or else, increase my strength…that I may overcome all the pain of my travail”. Anyway, the woman’s dilemma is acute. She is especially marked by the nature of child-birth from which she is 1.) made His workhouse, “thou hast vouchsafed to make me, as it were, thy workhouse…thou hast given me ability to conceive, so thou wilt give me strength to the perfecting of the thing that is in breeding”. But she’s also the natural reason for concupiscence or sin-nature in man. What is this “thing that is in breeding?” It must be the seed or soul which cannot be born of woman (who gives the body and fleshly concupiscence) but needs God’s first cause to quicken and increase until it is fully ‘brought forth” in glory. 

While the prayer book notes the woman as the vessel of birthing children, it also assigns her a special cause for sin, and from first degradation flows the notion and begging grace, pastoral care, and hence the start of an ordered society which is theocracy. The woman’s role is to be a workhouse for both God but also man. I’d like to further explore this concept from the bowels of the bcp, starting with the Churching of Women in the 1549 version, connecting the Anglican or Augustinian notion to original sin to the reaffirmaiton of patriarchy.

I’m adding more material below as wade through standards and will be integrating more proofs to scaffold the thesis. From the Second Book of Homilies 1563, On Whoredom and Uncleanness touches on this sort of sin known as concupiscence from which adultery arises:

“And surely if we would weigh the greatness of this sin, and consider it in the right kind, we should find the sin of woredom to be that most filthy lake, foul puddle, and stinking sink, whereunto all kinds of sins and evils flow, where also they have their resting place and abiding. For hath not the adulterer a pride in his whoredom? As the Wise Man saith, They are glad when they have done eivl, adn rejoice in things that are stark naught. Is not the adulterer also idle, and delighteth in no godly exercise, but only in that his most filthy and beastly pleasure? Is not his mind plucked and utterly drawn away from all virtuous studies, and fruitful labours, and only given to carnal and fleshly imagination? Doth not the whoremonger give his mind to gluttony, that he may be the more apt to serve his lust and pleasures? Doth not the adulterer give his mind to covetousness, and to polling and pilling of others, that he may be the more able to maintain his harlots and whores, and to continue in his flithy and unlwaful love? Swelleth he not also with envy against others, fearing that his prey should be allured or taken away from him?...What sin or kind of sin is it, that is not joined with fornication and whoredom? It is a monster of many heads: it receiveth all kinds of vices, and refuseth all kinds o fvirtues. If one several sin bringeth damnation, what is to be thought of sin, which is accompanied with all evils, and hath waiting on it whatsoever is hateful to God, danmable to man, and pleasant to Satan?” (Homilies, p. 86)

In his notes with the Wittenberg reformers, aka. 13 articles, Cranmer says in 1538 regarding the nature of cupiscence:

“For children are born with original sin, and need to have this sin forgiven, so that their guilt may be removed. Even though the corruption of nature called cupiscence remains in this life, it can begin to be healed because the Holy Spirit is effective even in children and cleanses them”.

”

Anabaptism demanded a radical rejection of the militant church, basically wishing the earthly kingdom to be identical to the heavenly one. Naturally, anabaptism wished kings and secular governments to be utterly severed from the church. Likewise, Rome elevated the Papal office to divine ordinance, and so a similar overthrow of secular or ‘earthly’ authority transpired. In both systems the church, or organs of such (be it the congregation or the papacy) were radically equated to the heavenly and perfected spirit. Thus, neither system recognizes the rights of kings, nations, married clergy, or whatever else normally found in national and familiar societies. Cranmer describes this displacement of the secular as a violence as it sets the kingdom of Christ unnecessary against the temporal. King Henry VIII’s Christian Institution of Man, 1537, iterates the problem of such pretensions on Rome’s part, saying:

“Notwithstanding, if any bishop, of what estate or dignity soever he be, be he bishop of Rome, or of any other city, province, or diocese, do presume, or take upon him authority or jurisdiction, in causes or matters which appertain unto kings and the civil powers, and their courts, and will maintain or think that he may so do by the authority of Christ and his gospel, although the kings and princes would not permit any suffer him so to do; no doubt that bishop [or church] is not worthy to be called a bishop [or church], but rather a tyrant, and an usurper of other men’s rights” (Formularies, p. 119-120)

Because both the anabaptist congregation and office of Papacy are above the earthly, displacing and overthrowing it, the rights and existence of the temporal are consequently jettisoned for the freedom (or tyranny) of the former. Rather than the two ruling together (as does body and soul), the spiritual commits itself to violence against the secular. This error begins by conceiving the church (or organ thereof) as radically apart and superior to the temporal bodies of men. The   older christian view was not greatly distinguishing between ecclesiastical and secular bodies but treating both as members of a single commonwealth with certain spheres of authority. When this common assembly or society is denied between church and state—either through papal claims to dominate the state or by anabaptist cries for a free church—peace between the body and soul no longer exists. Again, Christ did not come to destroy any articulation of the body (or any temporal sphere), but He came to properly rule, order, and sanctify the carnal for the sake of the spiritual. The 1537 catechism continues explaining the correct peace between spiritual and temporal, saying,

“For the kingdom of Christ in his church is a spiritual, and not a carnal kingdom of the world; that is to say, the very kingdom that Christ, by himself or by his apostles and disciples, sought here in this world, was to bring all nations from the carnal kingdom of the prince of darkness unto the light of his spiritual kingdom; and so to reign himself in the hearts of the people by grace, faith, hope, and charity. And therefore, sith Christ did never seek nor exercise any worldly kingdom or dominion in this world, but rather, refusing and fleeing from the same, did leave the said worldly governance of kingdoms, realms, and nations, to be governed by princes and potentates, (in like manner as he did find them,) and commanded also his apostles and disciples to do the sembable, as it was said before” (ibid)

This said “worldly governance of kingdoms, realms, and nations” for early Protestants included the Prince in externals of the church, namely, writing canons, setting forth injunctions, regulating courts, providing of finances, nominating and approving bishops, and calling convocations (see below). In these areas God gave man a certain liberty for order and peace, often set by custom, history, tradition, and, of course, practical wisdom. Yet, the secular couldn’t intrude upon the Keys since these were given to the apostles and therefore the ecclesiastical members of the people. But, unlike Papism and Anabaptism, both ecclesiastical and secular orders belonged and were subsumed to a common body, ruled by Christ through the vicarages of bishops and kings. The 1537 catechism describes these two spheres found within the single community:

“Moreover, the truth is, that God constituted and ordained the authority of Christian kings and princes and offices in the regiment and governance of his people; and committed unto them, as unto the chief heads of their commonwealths, the cure and oversight of all the people which be within their realms and dominions, without any exception. And unto them of right, and by god’s commandment, belongeth, not only to prohibit unlawful violence, to correct offenders by corporal death or other punishment, to conserve moral honesty among their subjects,  according to the laws of their realms, to defend justice, and to procure the public weal, and the common peace and tranquility in outward and earthly things; but specially and principally to defend the faith of Christ, to conserve and maintain the true doctrine of Christ, and all such as be true preachers and setters forth thereof, and to abolish all abuses, heresies, and idolatries, which be brought in by heretics and evil preachers, and to punish with corporal pains such as of malice be occasioners of the same; and finally, to oversee and cause that the said priests and bishops do execute their said power, office, and jurisdiction truly, faithfully, and according in all points as it was given and committed unto them by Christ and his apostles: which notwithstanding, we may not think that it doth appertain unto the office of kings and princes to preach and teach, to administer the sacraments, to absolve, to excommunicate, and such other things belonging to the office and administration of bishops and priests” (ibid)

Finally, anabaptism and romanism both overthrow the God-ordained duties of the secular/carnal by the attacking liberty. Anabaptism was notorious for identifying kinds of iconoclastic worship and primitive polity for biblical command (e.g., RPW). Romanism divinization of Tradition and then backed this up with the infallibility of Pope. Both hedge out the range of externals in which the secular authority is pleased to order to the point it ultimately denies the church an area that is made in history, time, and place. Such is a necessary corollary wherever ethnicity, race, and culture are refused as legitimate externals for church order and ceremony, and these not merely ‘circumstance’ but regulated for peace and piety according the good. These are concepts difficult for both Papism and Puritanism because both reject carnal potentates as having any right in matters of law for clergy, discipline, or ritual. 

“He keeps his servants between love, and fear, according as he finds them; but generally he distributes it thus, To his Children he shows more love than terror, to his servants more terror than love; but an old good servant boards a child*.”

*“boards a child” is a quaint expression meaning “borders on, approaches the status of a member of the family”.

When pondering the colonial past of America, can this same advice be heeded with various ethnos which our people encountered? For those nations who love the Crown, shouldn’t they be loved in return? This wisdom certainly echoes the word of the Lord given to Abraham,

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Gen. 12:3

This principle is also elaborated somewhat in the Law of Moses. Deuteronomy 15:16-17 explains the treatment of bondservants who, after emancipation, might opt to serve their master for the remainder of their lives rather than live on their own. Regardless the emancipated slave was given adequate material recompensation for good work,

“And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day. And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee; Then thou shalt take an aul, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant for ever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise”

Of course, the context of the servant is one of a circumcised Hebrew or—if speaking of the new covenant—a baptized Gentile. How might this relate to antebellum slavery? This author might suggest African slaves who were 1) in communion and good standing; and 2) possessed adequate occupational skills to be reasonably self-sufficient ought to have been manumitted after six years with sufficient compensation and the option to remain upon the master’s plantings if affections existed. In America the status of a free black was ambiguous, and, though free, they usually had no enfranchisement or civil rights but retained certain economic and property ones. Black Codes in the northern states often forbade permanent residency, pushing free Negroes to relocate beyond the United States into British dominions like Canada. Thus, vagrancy could become a factor of black recidivism. Meanwhile, more stable free blacks often lent support to slave rebellion and escapism. What resulted was an untenable situation that lacked clear political demarcations. If free negros were really an ethnos, then why not grant their political leaders with lands from the vast stretches of Western territory within the union?

Implicit in the Mosaic law is a sense of brotherly love. For servants who love their master, good treatment is the order. It is not clear this existed between white and black, and the lack of charity on both sides probably diminished the odds of a more equitable outcome; hence, abolitionism, radicalism, and fratricide.

The written prayers found in Elizabeth’s 1578 Primer are akin to brief homilies, having as much a teaching nature as intercession. Foxe describes the northern european countries who have embraced protestantism as that Western angle, “only a little angle of the West parts yet remaineth in some profession of thy Name”. Foxe blames two enemies—the Turk and Roman bishop—who together squeeze the national churches like a vice. The Turk not only has subdued Eastern christians, but in 1570 they threaten Europe at her gates. Meanwhile the Papacy busies itself with the persecution and burnings of northern catholics. There is a subtext behind both. Foxe betrays a kindredness with the East, but it is more nostalgic than actual. The present religion of the East is considered by Foxe as either unfaithful or ‘decayed’ due to Turkish rule. But the East is like England in so far as polities were both national and long ago blessed with learned divines. In keeping with a national model of the provincial church, Foxe recognizes the Papacy as no more than the bishop of Rome, calling him an “Italian Lord”. Especially touching is Foxe’s lament for protestant divisions, “protestants with protestants do not agree, but fall out for trifles.” Indeed! In this prayer the Queen is raised up as not only a regent for peace but a counter-salve to the pretentions of Italy and possibly Ottomans.

The Rev. John Foxe’s prayer begins:

(Clay, pp. 465-66) “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who wast crucified for our sins, and didst rise again for our justification, and, ascending up to heaven, reignest now at the right hand of the Father, with full power and authority, ruling and disposing all things according to thine own gracious and glorious purpose: we, sinful creatures, and yet servants and members of thy church, do prostrate ourselves and our prayers before thy imperial magesty, having no other patron nor advocate to seed our suits, or to resort unto, but thee alone, beseeching thee to be good to thy poor church militant here in this wretched earth; sometime a rich church, a large church, an universal church, spread far and wide, through the whole compass of the earth; now driven into a narrow corner of the world, and hath much need of thy gracious help. “

The Turk and Eastern Churches:

First, the Turk with his sword, what lands, what nations, and countries, what empires, kingdoms, and provinces, with cities innumerable, hath he won, not from us, but from thee. Where thy name was wont to be invocated, thy word preached, thy sacraments administered, there now remaineth barbarous Mahumet, with his flithy Alcoran. The flourishing churches in Asia, the learned churches of Grecia, the manifold churches in Africa, which were wont to serve thee, now are gone from thee. The seven churches of Asia with their candlesticks (whom thou didst so well forewarn) are now removed. All the churches, where thy diligent apostle St. Paul, thy apostles Peter adn John, and other apostles, so laboriously travailed, preaching and writing to plant thy gospel, are now gone from thy gospel. In all the kingdom of Syria, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, in all Armenia, and the empire of Cappadocia, through the whole compass of Asia, with Egypt, and with Africa also (unless among the far Ethiopians some old steps of Christianity peradventure do yet remain), either else in all Asia and Africa thy church hath not one foot of free land, but is all turned either to infidelity or to captivity, whatsoever pertaineth to thee. And if Asia and Africa only were decayed, the decay were great, but the defection were not so universal. 
Now of Europa a great part also is shrunk from thy church. All Thracia, with the empire of Constantinople, all Grecia, Epirus, Illyricum, adn now of late all the kingdom almost of Hungaria, with much of Austria, with lamentable slaughter of Christian blood, is wasted, and all become Turks. Only a little angle of the West parts yet remaineth in some profession of thy Name.
But here (slack) cometh another mischief, as great, or greater than the other. For the Turk with his sword is not so cruel, but the bishop of Rome on the other side is more fierce and bitter against us; stirring up his bishops to burn us, his confederates to conspire our destruction, setting kings against their subjects, and subjects disloyally to rebel against their princes, and all for thy name.
Such dissension and hostility Sathan hath sent among us, that Turks be not more enemies to Christians, than Christian to Christians, papists to protestants: yea, protestants with protestants do not agree, but fall out for trifles. So that the poor little flock of thy church, distressed on every side, hath neither rest without, nor peace within, no place almost in the world, where to abide, but may cry now from the earth, even as thine own reverence cried once from the cross: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

The Bishop of Rome and Protestant Troubles:

Amongst us Englishmen here in England, after so great storms of persecution and cruel murther of so many martyrs, it hath pleased thy grace to give us these Alcyon days, which yet we enjoy, and beseech thy merciful goodness still they may continue.
But here also (alack) what should we say? so many enemies we have, that envy us this rest and tranquility, and do what they can to disturb it. They which be friends and lovers of the bishop of Rome, although they eat the fat of the land, and have the best preferments and offices, and live most at ease, and ail nothing, yet are they not therewith content. They grudge, they mutter and murmur, they conspire and take on against us. It fretteth them, tha tw live by them, or with them and cannot abide, that we should draw the bare breathing of the air, when they have all the most liberty of the land.
And albeit thy singular goodness hath given them a Queen so calm, so patient, so merciful, more like natural mother than a princess, to govern over them, such as neither they nor their ancestors ever read of in the stories of this land before: yet all this wil not calm them, their unquiet spirit is not yet content; they repine and rebel, and needs would have, with the frogs of Aesop, a Ciconia, an Italian stranger, the bishop of Rome, to play Rex over them, and care not, if all the world were set a fire, so that they, with their Italian lord, might reign alone. So found are we Englishmen of strange and foreign things: so unnatural to ourselves, so greedy of newfangle novelties, never contented with any state long to continue, be it never so good; and, furthermore, so cruel to one another, that we think our life not quiet, unless it be seasoned with the blood of other. For that is their hope, that is all their gaping and looking, that is their golden day, their day of Jubilee, which they thirst for so much: not to have the Lord to come in the clouds, but to have our blood, and to spill our lives. That, that is it, which they would have, and long since would have had their wills upon us, had not thy gracious pity and mercy raised up to us this our merciful Queen, thy servant Elizabeth, somewhat to stay their fury: for whom as we most condignly give thee thanks, so likewise we beseech thy heavenly majesty, that, as thou hast given her unto us, and hast from so manifold dangers preserved her, before she was queen, so now, in her royal estate, she may continually be preserved not only from the hands, but from all malignant devices wrought, attempted, or conceived, of enemies, both ghostly and bodily, against her.”

The prayer then continues with blessings for the estates of England before returning to the usurpation of the Roman pontiff, “And forasmuch as the bishop of Rome is wont on every Good Friday to accurse us, as damned heretics, we curse not him, but pray for him, that he with all his partakers either may be turned to a better truth; or else, we prayer thee, gracious Lord, that we never agree with him in dotrine, adn that he may so curse us still, and never bless us more, as he blessed us in queen Mary’s time. God, of thy mercy keep away that blessing from us.” (p. 467)

The topic of the Roman anti-christ and English estate prayers give insight to national churches & protestant monarchism. They likely deserve their own posts. But for filler, I’ll leave this 1539 prayer from Hilsey’s Primer, titled The Bishop of Rome with his adherences, destroyers of all estates,

“There were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you likewise, which privily shall bring in damnable sects, even denying the Lord that hath bought them, and shall bring upon themselves swift damnation. And many shall follow their damnable ways, by whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, upon whom the judgment is not negligent in tarrying of old, and their damnation sleepeth not. They count it pleasure to live deliciously for a season. Spots are they and flithiness, living at pleasure and in deceivable ways, feasting with that which is yours, having eyes full of adultery, and cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart exercised with covetnousness. They are cursed children, and have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, which loved the reward of unrighteousness, but was rebuked of his iniquity. ” (Three Primers, p. 436)

I am a clergyman of the Episcopal Church. I have been in the ministry now here in North Carolina for more than fourteen years. I have served as priest in charge of one mission and as a rector of two parishes. In times past it has been my privilege to serve my church i many responsible positions. I was for several years a member of the Executive Council of the Diocese in which I was located, and was Secretary of the Diocesan Convention, Chairman of the Department of Youth, a member of the Department of Camps and Conferences, to mention some of the positions I have held.

But the time has come when I can no longer support the Protestant Episcopal Church and what it stands for, and I am now coming out of it. To say that I am leaving my Church is not quite the whole truth, for I feel that the Protestant Episcopal Church, for reasons to be enumerated, has already left me. I am separating myself from what the Church has become. I am getting out of the Church that I feel has departed from what I consider to have been its intellectual, spiritual, and doctrinal heritage. I have had all that I can stand of its social, economic, and political program of socialism; of its pseudo-brotherhood; of its appeasement of the Communists; of its so-called civil rights; and of its rejection of much that I consider to be fundamental to the Biblical faith.

An Episcopalian Heritage:
Let me preface what I have to say further by saying I am an Episcopalian of many generations. Episcopal clergy are among my forebears. I loved the Church of my childhood and the Church that I felt was handed down to me as “the Church of our Fathers”. I loved the comforting faith and gracious manners manifested in the lives of my early spiritual mentors, whose lives and teachings revealed that they were indwelt by the Spirit of our Savior, whom they taught as the bible plainly reveals. I still love its ancient liturgy and its ancient vestments, and I love the creeds and the heritage of its architecture, its hymns, and many things besides.

But the Church has changed; or, at least, the Church seems to be no longer as it used to appear. The spiritual and intellectual climate is no longer as in days gone by, and I feel that it has changed for the worse, and the faith of the clergy has been sorely watered down with liberal doctrine.

The root of my unrest is found, I believe, in the fact that the bent of my nature is primarily toward the Divine Revelation recorded for us in the Bible, which, I believe, has been imparted by the grace of the Holy Spirit. As I interpret the situation, my faith is basically Biblical faith; and I think that the faith of the Church also should be Biblical faith; and that its worship and practices should conform plainly to God’s Word which is found in His Holy Book.

Years of Reflection:
After years of long and considered reflection over observations gleaned from many sources, I have come to the conclusion, however, that there is a wide discrepancy between what the Bible teaches and what many of the clergy, both of the priesthood and of the episcopate, believe. There are many who do not believe that the Virgin Birth of Christ was an historic fact. They call it a myth. It is my conviction that there are many wo do not believe that the tomb in which our Lord was buried on Good Friday was empty on Easter morning and that He had risen from the dead in a transformed, quickened, glorified body. They say this also is only myth. It is my personal observation that there are many in the Church who do not believe in the Holy Trinity, in its historic relevance and significance. One bishop says that it is out of date. There are many who do not believe in the plain Bible statements that salvation is offered through Christ alone, through His atoning sacrifice, to be appropriated through faith in him.

Churchmen Reject the Bible:
As samples of current thinking, let me give you a few quotes from certain leaders of the Anglican Communion. Here are some attributed to His Grace, the most Rev. Arthur Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, who is recognized generally as the titular head of the worldwide Anglican communion. It is reported that in the London Daily Mail of October 2, 1961, he said, “Heaven is also not a place to which we humans go in our present bodily state, nor is it a place for Christians only. Those who have led a good life on earth but found themselves unable to believe in God will not be debarred from heaven. I expect to meet some present-day atheists there.” He reportedly is quoted in the Oakland Tribune of February 3, 1956 in an AP dispatch from Durham, England, as follows: “The theology of ‘Christ bore your punishment; believe and be saved,’ when accompanied by the fundamentalist cliche ‘The Bible says’ is a very distorted view of the apostolic gospel.” Further questionable theology of the Archbishop is reported in the same dispatch, where the Archbishop is said to have “attacked the Protestant movement which insists upon the infallibility of the scriptures and such biblical miracles as the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Christ.” Of Dr. Hewlett Johnson, the “Red Dean” of Canterbury, it reportedly is stated in a UPI dispatch of January 26, 1959: He “was quoted as saying he believes Stalin is in heaven…‘Stalin was a rough and stern man. He had to be because he had a very dirty job to do. But God’s eye is a big eye and sees everything, good and bad. To know all is to forgive all, so I think that from heaven’s point of view, Stalin is safe’.” These statements speak for themselves and are hardly deserving of comment among people who believe plain statements of Scripture.

The Rt. Rev. Richard S. M. Emrich of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan is quoted in the Detroit News of December 30, 1961 as saying: “You see, God knows His own, and the one thing He wants is love. That is why a good Moslem, who loves God and his neighbor, has a better chance at heaven than a lazy, selfish Christian.” I wonder what prompted the to engage in this sophistry. I wonder also, does he consider the doctrine of the third chapter of the Gospel of St John to be false doctrine? Apparently, he does.

It is my conviction that a Church that tolerates such views as these is to that extent apostate. It is my conviction that such views in the Church are growing, and I feel that to the extent that I am supporting a Church that permits such beliefs, I am supporting apostasy; I am willfully participating in the betrayal of my Lord. God forbid! I feel that the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church has failed in one of its basic obligations, namely, that of attempting to proclaim the historic Faith and to keep the Faith of the Church as free of heresy as possible. In at least one particularly obvious instance, namely, concerning the observations of Bishop Pike, the House of Bishops has failed to take a stand and clearly delineates its position. The House of Bishops has failed in its duty to the people of the Church in this regard.

Churchmen are Sacerdotalist
Besides this thinking, to which I take exception, I must confess to a lack of sympathy with certain practices among our High Church brethren, among them being the practice of invoking the blessings of the Virgin Mary. This, to my way of thinking, is a product of medieval and premedieval superstition and there is no warrant whatsoever for it in Scripture. It tends to deprive our Lord of veneration due to Him alone. I feel that anything that does this is of the Antichrist. Another practice with which I have little sympathy is that of reserving the Sacrament and of tending to place the physical elements of the Holy Communion, the bread and the wine, on a level where they are held in adoration. I feel that the reserving of the elements and the tendency toward the adoration of the elements in certain worship services hint strongly of idolatry. The elements, the bread and the wine, in effect, as I interpret the situation, become considered practically to approximate the actual physical presence of the body and the blood of the Son of God; the practice smacks mightily of the doctrine of transubstantiation; and, to the extent that this is true, I consider it to be idolatry. I find it difficult to support a Church that indulges in such practices.

One gets the impression that one can belong to the Protestant Episcopal Church and believe anything or everything or nothing at all, except, that is, in regard to certain social and political issues.

Churchmen are Leftist
Apart form this issue of the basic doctrines of the Faith, I find myself sorely tired by our Church’s participation in worldly matters that I consider to be of the anti-Christ. The Protestant Episcopal Church is a member of the National Council of Churches. I did not vote to get into it, and I cannot vote to get out of it, and I have no way of making my will or views of any effect in regard to it. I am advised that among many of the things that the National Council of Churches advocates are disarmament, co-existence with Russia, the abolition of loyalty security laws, recognition of Red China, forced racial integration, to mention but a few. One stud of the National Council of Churches by a congregation of the Protestant Episcopal Church states that the Council has “exceeded its rightful role in speaking out, as the official voice of Protestantism in America, n such controversial issues as federal aid to education, the right-to-work laws, the ethical considerations of the steel dispute, the seating of Red China in the United Nations, etc.,” and that it, “as presently constituted and operated, is a harmful and highly dangerous institution” (St .Mark’s Vestry Committee Report on the NCC). I am advised that in 1960 the Episcopal Church gave the NCC “over $500,000” which “does not include private gifts, but is represented in the general budget of the Episcopal Church, pp. 47-51” (The National Council of Churches of Christ—Activities Revealed, published by the State Rights Council of Georgia). When I support the Protestant Episcopal Church, my financial contributions and my moral and spiritual support are funneled in part into the support of the National Council of Churches. There is no way that I can avoid this happening so long as I am supporting the Protestant Episcopal Church in any way whatsoever, whether it be in givin gtoward local needs, toward building funds, or anything else. I am opposed to my supporting, even indirectly, an organization that is aligned with forces that are destroying America. It sorely tries my spirit.

Someone has sent me a copy of the “Belief and Declaration of Purpose” of the Committee of Christian Laymen, Inc., Box 285, Woodland Hills, California. The Statement to which I heartily subscribe reads a follows:

1. We believe in an unchanging God “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” hence the Gospel of Jesus Christ, rather than the Social Gospel, should be preached from the pulpit.
2. We believe that as individuals we are fully capable of making our own political decisions. So we oppose the political activities of the National Council of Churches in seeking, as an organization, to influence legislation in the name of Protestantism.
3. We oppose the One World, One Church idea where by this nation surrenders its sovereignty to the United Nations as promoted by our Church leaders.
4. We support the American Free Enterprise System and our Constitutional Republican form of government as a necessary adjunct to the survival of Christianity.
5. We seek to inform lay people of influence in our Seminaries and Churches which downgrade the Bible and picture of Jesus Christ as just another man. These influences have now reached into Church publications including Church school literature for our young people.

So ends the “Belief and Declaration of Purpose” of th Committee of Christian Laymen.

It is obvious, it seems to me, that much of the programs of the National Council of Churches and of the International Communist conspiracy are being promoted within the framework of the Episcopal Church. A new clergyman in the diocese some time ago quoted a bishop as indicating to him that “the plums”—that is, preferred positions—in the Diocese went to the men who promoted the program of the National Council of Churches. It seems obvious. The Church, in my opinion, is so oriented toward a program of political and social action, that it practically has lost its true mission. We have committees in the Church that tell us how the Church can be effective in getting legislation passed, such legislation as the abolition of capital punishment, civil rights (so-called), etc. When I support the Church, I am supporting agencies of the Church doing  these kinds of things. I find that I cannot endure it any longer. It appears that the Church has degenerated into the role of a political and social action committee trying to remake the world, by the use of force and persuasion, into the image that the people in authority in it think it ought to be made into, rather than, through preaching the Gospel, letting the Holy Spirit of God move men to do His will freely.

I feel that in th Protestant Episcopal Church I am supporting a political and social action program committed to things that I disagree with and that are displacing the Church’s primary function of proclaiming the saving grace offered to sinners through faith in the Divine Savior. I am afraid that I have had about all that I can stand.

First Concern in the Faith:
These times are times of grave concern. My first concern is for the historic Christian Faith. Christianity is founded on God the Father’s revelation of Himself to the world through HIs divinely appointed Son, knowledge of whom has been committed truthfully to us through the scriptures and through the Holy Spirit and through a faithful ministry. My second concern is for my country, which is based on the Federal Constitution as it is plainly worded and plainly intended by its authors and based on the basic economic factor of private property, and on concern for the preservation of our national sovereignty and individual freedom. Thirdly in order comes my concern for the Episcopal Church. I cannot accommodate myself to rationally and willfully serving both good and evil. When the Episcopal Church serves causes that I consider to be evil and contrary to the best interests of the Biblical faith and of my country, then something has to give somewhere, and my personal integrity under God is more important to me than my remaining a priest of the Episcopal Church.

I feel therefore that the Church and I must separate. I have felt for a long time that I should stay with the Church and I must separate. I have felt for a long time that I should stay with the Church and fight for what I believe in, from within the Church, and I have done so. But I think now that the time has come when I may be able to give a more adequate witness to God’s Truth outside the Episcopal Church.

I wish to let it be clearly known that I stand unequivocally for certain elements of the orthodox faith that I consider basic and particularly relevant at this time, these elements being:

• the Virgin Birth of our Lord as historical fact,
• the Divinity of our Lord,
• the Atoning Sacrifice of the Cross,
• the Resurrection of our Lord from the grave, leaving the tomb empty on Easter morn,
• the Second Coming of Jesus, and
• salvation by Grace through Faith alone

To sum up now, from the negative side, let me say that I sense deeply the fact that the Episcopal Church is participating in the general dissipation of the historic, Biblical faith; it is actively engaged in working against the best interests of our country; and it is actively working to destroy race, peace, and American culture by advocating the use of force by the Federal Government which would take away ultimately all of our freedom and liberties.

I know there is much true faith in the Church. I know well of many great sacrifices now being made by churchmen in the name of our Savior. It is a bad situation that does not have some good mixed with the bad, but the evils I have pointed out exist on too great a scale for me to live with here any longer. If the House of Bishops will not give us a clear statement of its attitude on certain heretical sounding pronouncements, and if others in high places in the Church can deny our Lord as the one Way, Truth, and Life, then the theological and spiritual climate is not for me.

The Demand of Holy Scripture
The fourteenth through the eighteenth verses of the Sixth chapter of the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, I feel, speaks to me profoundly in this hour.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what cncord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not th eunclean thing: and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

And so I come out. I have found that there are other people who have suffered the same trials of their faith and the same mental anguish that I have suffered, and they plan to come out with me. We plan to set up a new Episcopal Church patterned after the historic Anglican faith and tradition. We believe that God will bless our efforts. We believe that there are many who believe as we believe and who are looking for a wholesome spiritual home. We believe that there are many who are weary of contributing their money toward Church programs that are opposed to the welfare of our country and Biblical religion, and who would welcome the opportunity of being able to make a contribution to what we are trying to do. If you are one of these people, then we extend to you a most profound and prayerful invitation to come along and help build an Episcopal Church based on the Scriptures and on the orthodox liturgy and traditions, and one that seeks humbly by God’s grace to strip itself of unbelief, apostasy, and pagan superstitions, to witness to God Almighty in the name of His divinely appointed Son, in His Spirit, to whom alone we give all the praise and honor and glory.

If you are interested further in our plans , we hope to hear from you.   Rev. James P. Dees

English divinity continued this older religious practice on the condition it was not contrary to scripture. The earlier Roman Catholic cult was distinguished by a vast and messy array of superstitions, not to mention devotional practices promoted by the Papacy that reinforced Rome’s merit theology. An alternative to abolishing the entire cultus was pruning away exagerations. English Reformers accomplished this several ways (3). In 1538 reverencing of images by decking or prayer were banned in both public and private worship (4). The 1536 Ten Articles rebuked those vain superstitions, “as to think that any saint is more merciful, or will hear us sooner than another or that any saint doth serve for one thing more than another, or is patron of the same” (Formularies, p. 30). In 1548 Anglicans started reform of the Salisbury mass, finishing an overhaul of the missal and its related Christian calendar which eliminated many legendary saints. In 1544 the “litany of saints” was also revised, where the heavenly saints were reduced to a single stanza while living members of the church gained the greater focus of the litany. Until 1549 this single stanza continued from the Cranmer’s 1544 litany where an invocation of heavenly saints remained: 

“Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of our Savior Jesus Christ. Pray for us All holy Aungels and Archaungels and all holye orders of blessed spirites. Praye for us. All holy patriarkes, and Prophetes, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, & Virgins, and all the blessed company of heaven: Praye for us.”

The next prayer book published in 1549 collated together the 1544 and 1536 reforms. But the single invocation quoted above was removed. This omission represented a final shift away in devotions from the orderly host in heaven towards Christ’s commonwealth on earth; e.g., “God save the King”, et al. This liturgical development in the prayer book basically translated the sacred order in heaven to the emerging order in the national church. As Laud’s book said, “Everlasting God, which hast ordained and constituted the services of all Angels and men in a wonderful order”. The wonderful order of men on earth was recalled with every state prayer found in the BCP and royal primers of the period, reminding men of their common parentage(s) yet hierarchic loyalties to church, council, and Crown(5).  The 1547 Homily on Obedience parallels the earthly to heavenly order, “Almighty God hath created and appointed all things in heaven, earth and waters, in a most excellent and perfect order. In heaven he hath appointed distinct and several orders and states of Archangels and Angels. In earth he hath assigned and appointed Kings, Princes, with other Governors under them, in all good and necessary order.” (Prayer Book and Homily, p. 73) The emphasis on the terrestrial was evident in the BCP’s litany as well as prayer for whole church. In both, the top of the earthly hierarchy was the Crown, followed by royal seed, then bishops, nobles, and people. By 1552 the focus from the heavenly saints to the terrestrial Kingdom was complete. For instance, the Whole Church Prayer in 1549 earlier read, “Let us pray for the whole state of Christ’s church”, but in 1552 and later editions the phrase “militant here in earth” was added. The litany followed the same course of reform.

Before it was removed, the 1549 Whole Church prayer was similar to the 1544 litany, only briefly mentioning the heavenly procession:

“And here we do geve unto thee moste high praise, and heartie thankes, for the wonderfull grace and vertue, declared in all thy sainctes, from the begynning of the worlde: And chiefly in the glorious and moste blessed virgin Mary, mother of thy sonne Jesu Christe our Lorde and God, and in the holy Patriarches, Prophetes, Apostles and Martyrs, whose examples (O Lorde) and stedfastnes in thy fayth, and kepyng thy holy commaundementes, graunt us to folowe”

But notice the 1549 saint-prayer above was commemorative rather than intercessory, so even at this early Edwardian date England had acquired a format that would define future reformed catholic petitions. Following the 1562 homily on prayer, we are instructed that only the Father has the attributes to answer those who call upon him. Meanwhile, only the Son has the favor to advocate our behalf. Thus prayers could neither be addressed to nor requested of saints without tarnishing the Triune God’s glory(6). Yet the virtues demonstrated in mortal lives could indeed be remembered, even asked for. So, the homilist says, “not that we should put any religion in worshipping of them, or praying unto them; but that we should honor them by following their virtuous and godly life” (Prayer Book and Homily, p. 223). The 1536 Ten Articles said the same, “there may be representers of virtue and good example, and that they also be by occasion the kindlers and stirrers of men’s minds, and make men oft to remember and lament their sins and offences, especially images of Christ and our Lady” (Formularies, p. 28).

Principally written by Melancthon in 1536, the Wittenburg Concord, by which the English Ten Articles were a reply and closely framed, likewise said, “We do not reject the remembrance of saints and the celebration of their days, but for the following reasons consider that it is beneficial and Christian to keep their remembrance” (art. 16). The Concord then provided three causes: 1. “God wanted to set before Christendom examples in whom he might show that he pleases to be gracious”; 2. “to hold before the people examples of faith and of other virtues, so that we may follow after them, each one his own calling”; 3. “we should thank God that he gave these gifts to the saints, and they should be praised for having really used God’s gifts and resisted the desire of the flesh to squander”. Melanchthon ended the article quoting fathers,

“This veneration of the saints we permit in the sense only St. Basil and St. Jerome speak of it, for Basil speaks thus in his sermon concerning the martyr Gordius: “The saints do not need our praises for their salvation, but we need to remember them in order to follow their example.” In another sermons he says: ‘To praise and bless the martyrs is the same thing as to admonish the Church to follow their examples and their virtues”. (Bray, p. 159)

Martin Bucer, agreeing with Melanchthon’s commendation said,

“we teach that the blessed saints who lie in the presence of or Lord Christ and of whose lives we have biblical or other trustworthy accounts, ought to be commemorated in such a way, that the congregation is shown what graces and gifts their God and Father and ours conferred upon them through our common Saviour and that we should give thanks to God for them, and rejoice with them as members of the one body over those graces and gifts, so that we may be strongly provoked to palce greater confidence in the grace of God for ourselves, and to follow the example of their faith.”

By 1549 common prayer already had a regular form for commemorating saints, exemplified not only in the prayer book but in the collect for All Saints Day:

“O Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which thou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen(7)”

A similar one emphasizing the examples of saints can be read in the 1928 BCP’s Whole Church prayer:

“And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.”

A favorite, more embellished style is the prayer of commemoration found within the Society of King Charles Martyr’s Liturgical Manual (see graphic above) where the collect for Jan. 30th reads,

“Blessed Lord, in whose sigh the death of thy Saints is precious: We magnify thy Name for thine abundant grace bestowed upon thy servant, King Charles of England, by which he was enabled so cheerfully to follow the steps of his blessed Master and Savior, in a constant meek suffering of all barbarous indignities, and at last resisting unto blood, and even then, according to the same pattern, praying for his murderers. Let his memory, O Lord, be ever blessed among us, that we may follow the example of his courage and constancy, his meekness and patience, and great charity; and all for Jesus Christ’s sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.”

English divines followed the criteria of Cranmer and Bucer, eliminating ‘legendary saints’ and dividing the remainder into biblical and historic kinds. However, Anglican theology retained a hesitancy regarding the dearly departed. Greater saints remained. The Ten Articles said, “they be thus to be honored, because they be known the elect persons of Christ, because they be passed in godly life out of this transitory world, because they already do reign in glory with Christ” (Formularies, p. 29). But in the morning prayer liturgy, the Te Deum reads, “We believe that thou shalt come to be our judge. We therefore pray thee, help thy servants, whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood. Make them to be numbered with thy saints, in glory everlasting. O Lord, save thy people, and bless thine heritage. Govern them, and lift them up forever” (1928 BCP, p. 10-11). The biblical saints were those disciples & apostles found in scripture; otherwise known as ‘red-letter saints’, designated by red type in the prayer book which indicated their ‘festive’ significance. Whereas the historical saints not mentioned in scripture (the ‘churchy” ones), often british kings and ancient doctors, went by the moniker as ‘black-letter’. But these were downplayed with no necessary festivity attached. Legendary saints or events (e.g, the Assumption of Mary) and those martyrs who battled for papacy (like Thomas Becket) were promptly eliminated. Black-letter saints pertaining to England’s history and the primitive church slowly gained ground, starting in 1552 with Clement and Lawrence. Others made gradual comebacks, appearing first in Tudor primers and then in the 1662 prayer book(8). The 1662 is notable for adding new saints and days of commemoration unique to Anglican history, namely, King Charles I martyr (who was beheaded by army millenarians January 30th,1649) and the 1660 Restoration the Crown, Charles II.

Black-letter saints usually had no collects and propers (9). More often lesser saints were given secular or mneumetic functions with such times/places for bill collection, street names, college chapters, almonries, hospitals, etc.. Black and some red-letter saints might have local observances depending upon the indulgence of the King and/or bishops, “And likewise we must keep holydays unto God, in memory of him and his saints, upon such days as the church hath ordained their memories to be celebrated; except they be mitigated and moderated by the assent and commandment of us, the supreme head and the ordinaries” (Formularies, p. 30). But Edward and Elizabeth actually restrained the increase of black-letter days partly because too many holy days, rather than promoting godliness encouraged idleness while discouraging charity, “that it shall profit more their soul’s health, if they do bestow that on the poor and needy, which they would have bestowed upon the said images or relics” (Bray, p. 176). Injunctions against veneration of saints were probably more pastoral than dogmatic. The1539 Abrogation of Holy Days was similar in this regard about the vice of idleness, Cromwell’s Goodly Primer reading:

“First, that the feast of dedication of the Church shall in all places throughout this realm be celebrated and kept on the first Sunday of the month of October for ever, and upon none other day. Item, that the feast of the patron of every Church within this realm, called commonly the Church holyday, shall not from henceforth be kept or observed as a holy day as heretofore hath been used, but that it shall be lawful to all and singular persons, resident or dwelling within this realm, to go to their work, occupation, or mystery, and the same truly to exercise and occupy upon the said feast, as upon any other workday, except the said feast of the Church holyday such as else universally observed as a holyday by this ordinance following…it may be lawful for every man to go to his work or occupation upon the same, as upon any other workday, except always the feasts of the Apostles, of our blessed Lady, and of St. George, and thus the four Evangelists, and Mary Magdalene.” (Three Primers, p.331-2)

Kinists ought consider how the saint days of the calendar solemnize a “ethnos”. Though many shrines and reliquaries were demolished and outlawed during the reformation, the ‘reformed catholic’ keeping of biblical and trustworthy historical saints continued the memory of sacred people and land. With every wave of conquest arriving upon Britain (e.g., the Anglo-Saxon, then Norman races), so too followed their saints, stratified and collected into the BCP calendar. While the first prayer book was rather barebone, both black and red-letter saint days increased. When James I introduced prayer books adapted for Ireland and Scotland their calendars were edited to incorporate saints peculiar to the celtic ethnos. Inside these 17th century editions can be found men of holy memory like Columba and Patrick. A personal favorite is the 1637 Scottish prayer book where numerous Northumbrian saints appear—Kings Edwin & Oswald, Bede, Aidan, Colmán of Lindisfarne, et al.—hearkening back to a period when tribal kings ruled lesser realms like Mercia, Sussex, Kent. Prayer books from continuing churches contain feast days of local significance for Tudor and Carolinian divines like Thomas Cranmer, Matthew Parker, William Laud, Lancelot Andrewes, and William Law. More modern doctors remembered in the calendar might include William Muhlenberg, John Hobart, and the White & Seabury consecrations.

A reformed catholic treatment of saints seems preconditional to understanding the even more sticky subject of Protestant prayers for the departed. As said earlier, I hope to look at how kin(g)ship might be reconstructed within magisterial protestantism through the field of certain liturgical customs. Sainthood was one way to memorialize the deceased. In many ways, magisterial protestantism never broke from catholicism but continued it with varying degrees of non-dogmatic prohibitions (thus accounting for national differences between, say, German and English). The English treatment probably was more conservative, eliminating only those saints either caked in fabulous legend or serving as props for Papacy. Anglican liturgy, therefore, is simplified with a modest saint-cultus that allows history and time sacrilized through the Calendar. Saints were often signs or focal points for ethnos and would vary from locality to locality. 
Next: Protestant Prayers for the Departed or A Protestant Dirge

Collection of Private Devotions Bishop John Cosin
In the section for Honor thy father and thy mother, Cosin outlines our responsibilities to fathers, both natural and spiritual. But he also includes a dimension not usually spoken of reserved for charity with inferiors of the same house.
Duties of the Fifth Commandment
1. To love, honor, and obey our father and mother with all lowliness and reverence.
2. To succor, help, and serve them at their need.
3. In like manner, faithfully to serve, honor, and humbly obey the king; to reverence his sacred power, and his sovereign authority over us.
4. To live by his laws and commandments, according to God’s blessed word and ordinance, and not at our own pleasure, to do what we will.
5. To live in an orderly and quiet subjection to the king’s subordinate magistrates; to our husbands, masters, tutors, and governors, with all fidelity.
6. To submit ourselves lowly and reverently to them that our our spiritual guides and fathers, the prelates, and priests of God’s church.
7. Finally, to carry ourselves meekly to all, and humbly to them that be our betters in any kind or degree whatsoever; not denying them their due love and regard that be our inferiors or under our authority.

Offenders Against the Fifth Commandment:
1. They that disobey the lawful commands of their father or mother.
2. They that neglect, or despise, or grieve their persons.
3. They that murmor, mutiny, rebel, and dishonor the king, either by denying reverence to his person, or obedience to his laws, or due maintenance to his state.
4. They that are undutiful to their husbands, masters, and governors, in such matters as be within their power and authority.
5. They that neither reverence the persons, nor obey the precepts, nor care for the authority of their ecclesiastical governors.
6. They that give offence by disregarding of any, specially of them that are more aged and better than themselves.
7. They that are unthankful to their benefactors.
8. They that neglect to give unto their wives, their children, their kindred, their neighbors, or any their inferiors, that love and regard which severally belongs unto them.

Notice article eight, where “kindred” might be understood as the extended household if not kinsmen. The context eliminates children, neighbors, or other inferiors that are already mentioned. We may also refer to the 1928 Prayer Book’s prayer for Our Country (when the WASP center was both populous and secure) which uses the term ‘kindred’ as equivalent to ethnos or race, “Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues” (p. 36). This suggests charity’s lateral dimension. Fifth commandment injunctions usually focus upon our obligations to “betters”, but there is also a responsibility of the master to subordinates and kinsmen. Dean Nowell calls this the “other part” of the command. Elaborating further upon these notions, for the private household, the fifth commandment requires the master to care for his servants as well as those connected to the wider body of the manor (visitors, cousins, strangers, and businessmen). For the secular King, it would not differ but the concept expanded to greater kindred and feal households, namely, those dignities and manors where men have sworn, contracted, or betrothed themselves to a greater prince in some fashion. This is where we begin to touch upon the idea of ‘nation’, its roots and origins stemming from the old Anglo-Latin ‘house’. The Latin term, paterfamilias, comes to mind as the “father of the family” or the “owner of the family estate”. The Wiki definition gives us insight into the Anglo-Latin idea: “The Roman household was conceived of as an economic and juridical unit or estate: familia originally meant the group of the famuli (the servi or serfs and slaves of a rural estate) living under the same roof. This meaning later expanded to indicate the familia as the basic Roman social unit, which might include the domus (house or home) but was legally distinct from it – a familia might own one or several homes. All members and properties of a familia were subject to the authority of a pater familias: his legal, social and religious position defined familia as a microcosm of the Roman state”. This would be true with the Anglo and Norman states as well.

Another implication of the fifth commandment is the idea of a community that is governed by superiors and is otherwise an ‘ordered’ one. The catechism of 1573 lists some qualities that might make a person a ‘superior’: the dignity of title (‘worship’), the degree of learning, reverence toward age, and wealth at disposal. Those who possess a ‘superior’ charge, including princes of kindreds, do so by the ordination of God, all such offices having their source from a common “fount” . The master of a house, or patriarch, would be one such “fount”, possessing duties and responsibilities according to the order or justice assigned by God. The rule of master over servant is compared to parents over ‘good’ children. The honor given to natural parents is our first lesson in civic duty, i.e., honoring the prince. Likewise, our charity inclined toward the rearing of children is the same principle by which men govern estates. Therefore, we should note the troubles which befall a nation when duties to natural parents are cast-off.  The catechism also asks us to consider the second clause of the fifth commandment, “thou shall live long in the land”. Evidently the principle goes beyond the Jews in Canaan, says Nowell, but Gentiles too according to the universal nature of families and nations. Not only the blessings of country but the lots and boundaries assigned to Israel are normative. Thus, this second half of the command associates land and inheritance with families, having consequence upon territorial ethno-nations.

Nowell’s Catechism 1573:
S. The second table beginneth thus: ‘Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee’. M. What is meant in this place by this word Honor?
S. The honor of parents containeth love, fear, and reverence, and consisteth as in the proper work and duty of it, in obeying them, in saving, helping, and defending them, and also feeding and relieving them if ever they be in need.
M. Doth the law extend only to parents by nature?
S. Although the very words seem to express no more yet we must understand that all those to whom any authority is given, as magistrates, ministers of the church, schoolmasters; finally, all they that have any ornament, either of reverent age, or of wit, wisdom, or learning, worship, or wealthy state, or otherwise be our superiors, are contained under the name of fathers; because the authority both of them and of fathers come out of one fountain.
M. Out of what fountain?
S. The only decree of the laws of God, by which they are become worshipful and honorable, as well as natural parents. For from thence they all, whether they be parents, princes, magistrates, or other superiors, whatsoever they be, have all their power and authority; because by these it has pleased God to rule and govern the world.
M. What is meant by this, that he calleth magistrates, and other superiors, by the name of parents?
S. To teach us that they are given us of God, both for our own and public benefit, and also by example of that authority, which of all other is naturally least grudged at, to train and inure the mind of man, which of itself is puffed with pride, and lot to be under other’s commandment, to the duty and obedience toward magistrates. For by the name of parents, we are charged not only to yield to and obey magistrates, but also to honor and love them. And likewise, on the other part, superiors are taught so to govern their inferiors, as a just parent useth to rule over good children.
M. What meaneth that promise which is added to the commandment?
S. That they shall enjoy long life, and shall long continue to insure and stedfast possession of wealth, that give just and due honor to their parents and magistrates.
M. But this promise seemeth to belong peculiarly to such Jews as be kind to their parents.
S. It is no doubt, that that which is by name spoken of the land of Canaan, pertaineth only to the Jews. But, for as much as God is Lord of the whole world, what place soever he giveth us to dwell in, the same he promiseth and assureth us in this law that we shall keep still in our possession.

The idea of paternal obedience as hinge to longevity in the land is iterated in the Homily on Good Order. What was formerly coveted passes into dispossession, murder, and theft. Also, notice how the homily closely approximates ‘vocation’ for estate, saying,

“Every degree of people in their vocation, calling, and office, hath appointed to them their duty and order: some are in high degree, some in low; some Kings and Princes, some Inferiors and Subjects; Priests and Laymen, Masters and Servants, Fathers and Children, Husbands and Wives, Rich and Poor: and every one hath need of the other: so that in all things is to be lauded and praised the goodly order of God; without the which no house, no city, no commonwealth, can continue and endure, or last. For, where there is no right order, there reigneth all abuse, carnal liberty, enormity, sin, and Babylonical confusion. Take away Kings, Princes, Rulers,, Magistrates, Judges, and such estates of God’s order; no man shall ride or go by the highway unrobbed; no man shall sleep in his own house or bed unkilled; no man shall keep his wife, children, and possessions in quietness: all things shall be common: and there must needs follow all mischief and utter destruction both of souls, bodies, goods, and commonwealths” (The Homilies, p. 72)

Of this ‘Godly Order’ each man has his vocation. Of particular interest might be those householders, natural fathers, and gentlemen that make up estates. Edward VI’s 1553 Primer gives prayers for each state. Of householders is expected the godly rising of servants and assignment of vocation, the implications for nation being the ‘largest house’,

“To have children and servants is thy blessing, O Lord, but not to order them according to thy word deserveth thy dreadful curse: Grant therefore, that as thou hast blessed me with an household, so I may diligently watch, that nothing be committed of the same that might offend thy fatherly goodness, and be an occasion of turning thy blessing into cursing; but that so many as thou hast committed to my charge, may eschew all vice, embrace all virtue, live in thy fear, call upon thy holy name, learn thy blessed commandments, hear thy holy word, and avoiding idleness, diligently exercise themselves every one in his office, according to their vocation and calling, unto the glory of they most honourable Name. Amen” (p. 465-66)

The primer exhorts Parents to instruct children for the peace of neighbors. Obviously this touches upon their longevity in the land, for the commodity of neighbor is made by godly example and correction, “Thou shalt reprehend thy brother when he sinneth, lest his offence come over all men” p. 482.  Of Fathers and Mothers says,

“The fruit of the womb and the multitude of children is thy gift and blessing, O Lord God, given to this end that they may live to thy glory, and the commodity of their neighbor. Forasmuch therefore, as thou of thy goodness hast given me children, I beseech thee give me also grace to train them up even from their cradles in thy nurture and doctrine, in thy holy laws and blessed ordinances, that from their very young age they may know thee, believe in thee, fear, love, and obey thee, and diligently walk in thy commandments all the days of their life, unto the praise of thy glorious name: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” p. 462

But the nation is for naught unless civilized by Gentlemen. In Edward’s primer ‘Gentlemen’ correspond to nobility or specially titled people. Again, while commodity and charity is the goal of the nation, this is not at the expense of necessary order. The primer admits charity does not negate an ordering of men according to gifts. Ideally speaking, the latter would compose the aristocracy and especially the royal council. Of Gentlemen the prayer reads thusly,

“Albeit whatsoever is born of flesh is flesh, and all that we receive of our natural parents is earth, dust, ashes, and corruption, so that no child of Adam hath any cause to boast himself of his birth and blood, seeing we have all one flesh and one blood, begotten into sin, conceived in uncleanness, and born by nature the children of wrath; yet forasmuch as some for their wisdom, godliness, virtue, valiantness, strength, eloquence, learning and policy, be advanced above the common sort of people unto dignities and temporal promotions, as men worthy to have superiority in the christian commonwealth, and by this means have obtained among the people a more noble and worthy name: We most entirely beseech thee, from whom alone cometh the true nobility to so many as are born of thee and made thy sons through faith, whether they be rich or poor, noble or unnoble, to give a good spirit to our superiors, that as they be called gentle men in mane, so they may shew themselves in all their doings gentle, courteous, loving, pitiful and liberal unto their inferiors; living among them as natural fathers among their children, not polling, pilling, and oppressing them, but favoring, helping, and cherishing them; not destroyers, but fathers of the commonality..they afore shewing gentleness to the common people, may receive gentleness again at thy merciful hand…” p. 457-8.

An earlier catechism, the 1543 Necessary Doctrine, likewise compares the duties of princes to those of natural parents. Civility is thus dependent upon the idea of family, and since all forms of authority have a natural basis, the subversion of one tends to undermine the others.The distortion of nation, like the distortion of marriage by homosexual union, adds to a total weakening. Anyway, the close relation should be recognized along with the two-fold trouble leveling agitation causes. The prelacy not only invests clergy but all kinds of fathers. For this reason James I said, “no bishop, no king”.

Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of Christian Man 1543
“In this commandment, by these words father and mother, is understand not only the natural father and mother which did carnally beget us, and brought us up, but also princes and all other governors, rulers, and pastors, under whom we be nourished and brought up, ordered and guided”
“And as the children by this commandment be bound to honor and obey they parents, according as is afore expressed, so it is implied in the same precept that the parents should nourish and godly bring up their children”
“This commandment also containeth the honor and obedience which subjects owe unto their princes; and also the office of princes towards their subjects. For scripture taketh princes to be as it were fathers and nurses to their subjects. And by scripture it appeareth, that it appertaineth unto the office of princes to see that the right religion and true doctrine of Christ be maintained and taught”

A very early catechism found in a 1535 [Marshall’s] Primer tells us honor is even owed to wretched parents, and we suppose the same applies to unrightful rulers or their unjust people.This truly tests our christian conscience that we must give pray for the spiritual rescue of tyrants or mercy for incorrigible people.

A Goodly Primer 1535
“Against the fourth offendeth he, that is ashamed of the poverty or any other worldly wretchedness or misery of his parents. He that provideth not such things as are necessary for them, as food and raiment. And much more they, which curse, bann, and beat them, which say evil by them, slander them, hate, and disobey them. He that in his heart setteth not much by them for God’s commandment. He that doth not honor them, though they be cruel and unrightful”

Under ‘Good Works’ (p. 72), the chiefmost good for neighbor is evidently, “to be obedient in all things unto kings, princes, judges, and such other officers, as far as they command civil things; that is to say things indifferent, and not contrary unto the commandments of God”. After this, the second greatest good to neighbor is,

“[the next are], to be obedient to father and mother, to provide for our household, both nourishing our family with bodily sustenance, and also to instruct them with the word of God, and so to be their governor, carnal and spiritual.”

At the back of Marshall’s primer is a short catechism, ‘dialogue between Father and Son’, where the high status of the fifth commandment in relation to neighbor is stated, “For our neighbor’s health and profit to serve them, and especially our father and mother, whom next God we ought to honor, to reverence, to obey, to comfort, to help, and to follow their godly monitions and instructions” (p. 221).

The Prayer Book’s Litany takes a contra-negative of children blessing wicked parents. Foolish parents often curse their children, reminding us the corporate, “bodily” aspect of Christ’s salvation, “Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers; neither take thou vengeance upon our sins: Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us forever”. This is much like the covenant language found in St. Luke’s Benedictus, and, of course this is also expressed in the BCP’s decalogue (p. 68), reminding us of our fathers’ covenant with God, invoking blessings according to generations. This latter part is found toward the end of the litany, thus somewhat bracketing it, “O God, we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble works that thou didst in their days, and in the old time before them”. This surely extends beyond the fathers of the old testament into the fathers of the church, especially our protestant-humanist divines and the natural fathers they endued with the blessings of family prayer, making the English home the ‘seminary of the church’.

Indeed, the Reverend George Herbert’s book, The Country Parson, describes the duties of instruction for fathers to children/household, “Those that can read, are allowed times for it, and those that cannot, are taught; for all in his house are either teachers or learners, or both, so that this family is a School of Religion, and they all account, that to teach the ignorant is the greatest alms. Even the walls are not idle, but something is written, or painted there, which may excite the reader to a thought of piety; especially the 101st Psalm, which is expressed in a fair table, as being the rule of a family.” (Country Parson, p. 68).

Cranmer’s Catechism, 1548, is more homiletic than others, offering practical alongside theological insight. Like the 1535, the older counting of the decalogue is still used. Thus, the fifth is referred to as the fourth commandment. There is a detailed explanation why men ought to honor parents, namely, because parents are regents of God. Cranmer reminds not only the many tangible benefits we have received at their hands, but how these offices work in God’s stead helping both body and soul. Throughout the catechism a federal principle of authority is pleaded, and, like Nowell’s, the second clause is discussed. Cranmer not only ties family to property but also native land, “from our parents we have our country”. Nation offers special affections, e.g., “kinsfolk acquaintances and friends”. And like Marshall’s Primer and Dean Nowell, our time in the portion of land alloted by God to us hinges upon obedience or Godly order. The lost of property may be either due to exile or invasion (as with the Jews in Deut 28) and is not treated by Cranmer as indifferent but the consequence of God’s indignation as previously expressed in the second clause.

Catechism 1548
“But of our fathers and mothers, we ought to look for no thanks but without benefits we must honor them, that is to say, we must order ourselves towards them, no otherwise then we would do toward kings, princes, and lords, to whom when we offer any present, we thank not that they be bound to render unto us any great thanks for the same, but we humbly fall on our knees before them, instantly desiring them, that they will vouchsafe to take in good part so small a gift, wherein we declare our goodwill far to pass our ability, and with all reverence we sue unto them, that of their clemency they will accept our good harts and minds. On this fashion we ought to behave ourselves towards our fathers and mothers, and when so ever we be able to do them any pleasure, we must honor them after the said manner, and reverently beseech them, that they will take well in worth such small tokens of our duty and love towards them. For we cannot render unto our fathers and mothers any gift or present so weighty that shall be able to counterpose the kindness which they have deserved at our hands, or can in any part recompense the great goodness and benefits which they have heaped upon without number. “...
“Hitherto you have heard what it is to honor your parents, no hear also the cause why God hath so diligently commanded this thing. Our Lord God hath given us so many benefits by our fathers and mothers that no tongue can worthily express them. For God useth our parents as his means by whom he giveth us life, breath, food, and all things necessary to the maintenance of this life. Therefore we ought to worship them, as the chosen instruments of God. And forasmuch as God himself is invisible to us here in earth, whom we neither see bodily nor hear his voice, therefore he hath appointed our fathers and mothers in his sted to talk with us, and to teach us what we ought to do, and what to eschew. Even as the shoolmaster doth often times commit his scholars to his usher, that he in the schoolmasters absence may teach and govern them, and him they ought to reverence and obey. And as the schoolmaster doth sharply correct and chastiseth those scholars that will not be ruled by his usher, so God will greviously punish those children, that dowith not obey their fathers and mothers. For he hath appointed the to be his deputies adn ushers in the education and governance of his children.’ ...
“And here you must not think that you owe this subjection only to your fathers and mothers, but the same obedience and honor is due also to all them whose help and labor your parents doeth oftentimes use in governing and teaching you. Of which sort is your tutors, schoolmasters, preachers, pastors, and curates, your masers that teach you your crafts, and also the magistrates, and common offices, for the holy scripture doth call all these fathers.” ...
“And beware good children that you despise not your parents, or uncourteously entreat them, because prechance they be simple men, rude, unlearned, poor weak, feable and impotent by the reason of their old age. For of what soever state condition or quality they may be, yet by them God hath given us our life, he hath ordained them to be our governors, and by them he haith given us infinite benefits, wherefore we ought to honor them, obey them, to be willing to ready both to learn and do that which they command us, to eschew those things which they forbid us. “...
“From our parents we have our country (which nothing more is pleasant unto us) and the freedom franchisees and liberties of the city in which we were born. Our parents also leave unto us oftentimes great plenty of riches and lands for our inheritance.”...
“Now good children you have heard what you ought to do, I pray you be willing to perform that thing, which your bounden duty requireth of you. For saint Paul sayeth, that this is the first or cheif commandment hang a promise annexed unto it. For herein God doth promise, that the which do honor his father and mother, shall live a long life, and shall abide in his native country. And he that doth not honor them, shall be driven out of his country, and shall shortly die. And surely this we prove to be true by daily experience. For when children be wanton, wild stiffnecked, stubborn, and refuse to be ruled by their parents and schoolmasters, or do not serve their master truly, when they will not have in reverence their preachers and curates, or do not obey the common rulers, then God scourage them, some with one punishment, some with another… But if perchance these disobedient children escape punishment in their youth, yet when they come to man’s state, and keep houses of their own, then commonly such children do not avoid this threat and indignation of God. For then many times they run into such trouble, that they be compelled to forsake their native country, and to fly into sanctuary, or else to wander into strange regions like banished men, far from their kinsfolk acquaintance and friends, where no man doth help them, trust them, or have pity of them…These and such like pains men do worthily suffer in their age, which in their youth disdained to follow the counsel of their parents.
Wherefore good children, obey your parents and magistrates, then you shall prove wise men, able to help both yourselves and other. Then God shall bless you, that you may long continue in the country wherein you were born and bred, and dwell among your parents, brethern and sisters, friends and acquaintances many years. Then extreme poverty shall not oppress you, whereby you should be compelled to leave your country, neither the rages or perils of war shall drive you out from these, so many and so great benefits God promised to obedient children.” 

More soon as I move from authoritative catechisms to sermons of divinity, the next belonging to Joseph Halll’s exposition on the fifth.