The Homilies Appointed To Be Read In Churches, revised and introduced by Ian Robinson
(Brynmill Press and Preservation Press of the Prayer Book Society USA, 2006).
JOHN FERNS is Professor Emeritus of English at McMaster University.
What could be a better gift from an
independent editor-publisher than
to restore to a floundering church one of
its foundational books? This is what Ian
Robinson, with the encouragement of the
Rev. Peter Toon and the joint venture of
Brynmill Press and Preservation Press of
the Prayer Book Society USA, has done in
republishing the Homilies for the first time
since 1859. As Robinson explains in a brief
preface:
During the first century of her separation
from Rome, three English
books were of supreme importance
to the Church of England. The first,
in a sense embracing the other two,
was the English Bible, which from
1539, still in the reign of Henry VIII,
was given royal sanction so that versions
close to Tyndale’s could be freely
read (if only chained in churches)
throughout the land. The second, the
Book of Common Prayer, had to wait
for the death of King Henry, who
was far too reactionary a theologian
to have countenanced it. These two
books, in the form of the 1611 Bible,
in direct descent from Tyndale, and
the 1662 revision of the Prayer Book
(with the Articles of Religion and
the Ordinal usually bound in the one
volume), are still in daily use.
The third member of the triad, the
Homilies, appeared in 1547, and went
through two major expansions as well
as many minor revisions in numerous
editions, between then and 1623, after
which there were many reprints (“The
Homilies and this Edition,” vii).
What are the Homilies? And why are
they, unlike the King James Bible and
the Book of Common Prayer, no longer
in daily use, especially when in Article
XXXV of the Thirty-Nine Articles of
Religion that I find in my 1959 Canadian
edition of the Book of Common Prayer
(that I use, if not daily, at least weekly) the
following:
The second Book of Homilies, the
several titles whereof we have joined
under this Article, doth contain a
godly and wholesome Doctrine, and
necessary for these times, as doth the
former Book of Homilies, which
were set forth in the time of Edward
the Sixth; and therefore we judge
them to be read in Churches by the
Ministers diligently and distinctly,
that they may be understanded of
the people (712).
Briefly, the Homilies are two books of
Tudor sermons “To Be Read in Churches”
in which the incumbent minister was not
licensed to deliver sermons. A Cambridge
or Oxford degree was required in order
to hold a license to preach. The first Book
of Homilies, likely edited by Archbishop
Thomas Cranmer, appeared in 1547
within six months of the death of Henry
VIII. Cranmer himself is thought to be
the author of four of the twelve homilies
in this book: “A Fruitful Exhortation to
the Reading of Holy Scripture,” “Of the
Salvation of all Mankind by only Christ,”
“Of the true, lively and Christian Faith,”
and “Of Good Works annexed unto Faith.”
These homilies contain Cranmer’s essential
thought on key matters of Reformed
theology such as justification by faith. That
the present Anglican/Episcopal church
could have lost sight of these homilies is
a disgrace. Cranmer’s chaplain Thomas
Becon is thought to be the author of the
eleventh homily, “Against Whoredom and
Uncleanness,” while Cranmer’s inclusiveness
is reflected in the fact that he invited a
later opponent Bishop Edmund Bonner and
his chaplain John Harpsfield to contribute
“Of Christian Love and Charity” and
“Of the Misery of all Mankind” respectively.
When the first Book of Homilies
was banned under Queen Mary I, Harpsfi
eld’s “Of the Misery…” was retained in
a Roman Catholic book of homilies that
appeared in 1555. In 1562, not long after
Queen Elizabeth I’s accession, a second
book of twenty-three homilies appeared
probably under the direction of Bishop
John Jewel. A final long homily “Against
Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion” was
added in response to the northern rebellion
of 1570. The Homilies were crucial
expositions of the Christian way of life
for the young Reformation Church of
England but, as Robinson suggests, they
can be as profitably read today as they
were in the sixteenth century. Robinson’s
republication couldn’t be more timely for
the Homilies are, indeed, as “necessary for
these times” as for the times for which they
were written. But how and why were the
Homilies (last published under authority
in 1623) lost?
John Donne, on one hand, spoke of
the Homilies as “cold meat” (Sermons III,
338) though elsewhere he praised them
(Sermons X, 93–94).1 At the end of the
seventeenth century, a later dean of St.
Paul’s and eventual archbishop of Canterbury,
John Tillotson, thought of preparing
a New Book of Homilies.2 John Wesley’s
fi rst manifesto (1738) was an abridgement
of Cranmer’s three sermons on justification
by faith. Fifty years later Wesley wrote,
“The book which next to the Holy Scripture
was of the greatest use to them [Methodist
Societies] in settling their judgment
as to the grand point of justification by faith
is the book of Homilies. They were never
clearly convinced that we are justified by
faith alone till they carefully consulted
these and compared them with the sacred
writings [the Bible]. And no minister
of the Church, can, with any decency,
oppose these, seeing that at his ordination
he subscribes to them in subscribing to the
thirty-sixth [sic] article of the Church.”3 S.
T. Coleridge, who read the Homilies in an
edition issued by the newly formed Prayer
Book and Homily Society, was impressed,4
while R. H. Graves in The Homilies Re-
Considered (Dublin 1826) defended them
forcefully, “the language of the Homilies
is perfectly intelligible to all ranks, and
to the lower order, I believe (and I speak
from experience) much more so than any
modern publications. To those that seek
for information without display, reverence
for antiquity without superstition,
zeal without innovation, close reasoning
without subtilty, doctrine without metaphysics,
morality without methodism, in
short the Gospel without human inventions;
the nervous condensation, and bold
simplicity of the Homilies will supply an
almost inexhaustible treasure.”5 Thirty
years later, John Griffiths’ edition, from
which Robinson takes his text, appeared.
So, the Homilies were alive, well, and
active in Christian life until, at least, the
latter part of the nineteenth century.
It was not until the twentieth century
that the Homilies were lost. Although
Professor W. E. Collins asserted the
continued importance of the Homilies
in The Witness of the Homilies (London:
SPCK, 1900) and Sir E. C. Hoskyns based
a series of sermons on them (see Cambridge
Sermons, ed. Charles Smyth [London:
SPCK, 1938]),6 Marcus Donovan, in
an article written with A. R. Vidler, in
Theology (1941) offered the following
opinion on hearing a ship’s captain read
the homily against Adultery at Morning
Prayer aboard a liner: “it is time that official
action should be taken to disown them [the
Homilies]; if printed at all, they should be
put forward, not by the Tract Committee
of the SPCK, but as documents illustrative
of the depth to which religion had sunk
as a result of the Reformation.”7 Donovan’s
partial view looks now like the tip
of an iceberg soon to surface as the New
English Bible and other feeble contemporary
translations, the Alternative Service
Book, a number of emasculated hymnals,
and most recently Common Worship.
Like earlier Brynmill Press publications on
Christianity, the present full edition of the
Homilies opposes this sorry spate of late
twentieth-century innovations.
The present edition of the Homilies
gets the twenty-first century off to a better
start in helping to return the Anglican/
Episcopal Church to its roots. Such a truly
radical effort is required, so what could be
better medicine for an ailing church than
its own Homilies. In a sermon preached at
St. George’s Reformed Episcopal Church,
Hamilton, Ontario in October 2001,
Robinson stressed the importance of the
Homilies as “necessary for these times”
in opposing the moral corruption of our
present “celebrity culture.”
So, why are the Homilies as valuable
today as when they were written?
Cranmer’s “A Fruitful Exhortation to the
Reading of Holy Scripture” is unsurpassable
as a recommendation for careful Bible
study. As noted, John Wesley stressed
Cranmer’s persuasiveness on justification
by faith and salvation “by only Christ.”
The thirty-six homilies, many in several
parts, deal convincingly and intelligently
with key elements in Christian living (for
examples, “Christian Love and Charity,”
“Concerning Prayer,” and “Against the Fear
of Death”) as well as with the significance of
central events in the Christian year such as
the Nativity, Good Friday, Easter Day, and
Whitsunday. The Homilies are doctrinally
sound, strongly argued, clearly written,
and can bear hearing or reading more than
once. It is easy to imagine them in effective
use in their time as well as continuing
to provide excellent sermons or sermon
material for present-day preachers. Let me
conclude with a representative example that
allows you “to taste and see” how good the
Homilies are. Here is Cranmer on justification
by faith that so impressed Wesley and
convinced the members of the Methodist
Societies:
Because all men be sinners, and offenders
against God, and breakers of
his law and commandments, therefore
can no man by his own acts,
works, and deeds, seem they never so
good, be justified and made righteous
before God; but every man of necessity,
is constrained to seek for another
righteousness or justification, to be
received at God’s own hands, that is
to say, the remission, pardon and forgiveness
of his sins and trespasses, in
such things as he hath offended. And
this justification or righteousness,
which we so receive by God’s mercy
and Christ’s merits, embraced by
faith, is taken, accepted and allowed
of God, for our perfect and full justifi
cation.
For the more full understanding hereof,
it is our parts and duty, ever to remember
the great mercy of God; how that, all the
world being wrapped in sin, by breaking of
the law, God sent his only Son, our Saviour
Christ, into this world, to fulfil the law for
us, and by shedding of his most precious
blood, to make a sacrifice and satisfaction,
or (as it may be called), amends to
his Father for our sins, to assuage his wrath
and indignation, conceived against us for
the same. Insomuch that infants, being
baptised and dying in their infancy, are
by this sacrifice washed from their sins,
brought to God’s favour, and made his
children, and inheritors of his kingdom of
heaven. And they which in act or deed, do
sin after their baptism, when they convert,
and turn again to God unfeignedly, they
are likewise washed, by this sacrifice, from
their sins, in such sort that there remaineth
not any spot of sin, that shall be imputed
to their damnation. This is that justification,
or righteousness, which St Paul speaketh
of, when he saith, No man is justified
by the works of the law, but freely, by faith in
Jesus Christ. And again he saith, We believe
in Christ Jesu, that we be justified freely, by the
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law;
because that no man shall be justified by the
works of the law. (“A Sermon Of The Salvation
Of Mankind By Only Christ Our
Saviour From Sin and Death Everlasting”
17–18)
The Homilies are not uniformly good.
Robinson is right that the two longest,
“Against Peril of Idolatry” and “Against
Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion” are
the two worst, and while much of “Of
The State of Matrimony” is persuasive and
valuable, I find its pervasive sexism hard to
take. I offer the following suggestions for
defi nition in the next edition of the Select
Glossary: “repugned” (84), “contentation”
(134), “diriges” (197), “month’s minds”
(197), and “trentals” (43, 197). Also, I
noted two possible typographical errors:
“command-ments”/ “commandments”
(44, line 29) and “wthin”/ “within” (332.
line 42).
NOTES
- See Certain Sermons or Homilies (1547) and A Homily
against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion (1570): A Critical
Edition, ed. Ronald Bond. (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1987), p. 23, passim. - Ibid., p. 15
- Ibid., pp. 15–6
- Ibid., p. 17
- Ibid., p. 24
- Op. cit.
- Ibid., p. 25
