Our Lady Saint Mary by J. G. H. Barry
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page 9 of 375 (02%)
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opinions may or may not have been held by Cranmer at various stages of
his career, or what opinions may be unearthed from the writings of Bale by experts in immoral literature; I am interested solely in the official utterances of the Anglican Communion. In following out this line of investigation I have spent many weeks in the reading of many dreary documents: but fortunately documents are not important in proportion to the element of excitement they contain. I have read the documents contained in the collection of Gee and Hardy entitled "Documents Illustrative of English Church History." I have read the "Formularies of Faith Put Forth by Authority during the Reign of Henry VIII." I have read Cardwell's "Synodalia." And I have also read "Certain Sermons or Homilies Appointed to be read in Churches at the time of Queen Elizabeth of Famous Memory." I doubt whether any other extant human being has read them. And the upshot of the whole matter is that in none of these documents have I found any expressed intention to depart from the Faith of the Catholic Church of the past as that Faith had been set forth by authority. No doubt in the Homilies there are things said which cannot be reconciled with the Faith of Catholic Christendom. But the Homilies are of no binding authority, and I have included them in my investigation only because I wanted their point of view. That is harmonious with the rest of the authoritative documents--the intention is to hold the Faith: unfortunately the knowledge of some of the writers was not as pure as their intention. The point that I am concerned with is this: there is no intention anywhere shown in the authoritative documents of the Anglican Church to effect a change in religion, or to break with the religion which had |
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