After a difficult civil war in which King Charles I of England was beheaded, and the Puritans gained the upper hand in Parliament, supported militarily by Oliver Cromwell, a need existed for the Church of England to be restructured along Reformed lines. The Reformation in England began politically with Henry VIII seeking a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, but it was Henry’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who was the architect of the Church of England after displaced the pope and declared himself supreme head over the Church in England.
The cause of the Reformation took great strides ahead when Henry’s son, Edward VI, came to the throne in 1547. Cranmer and Martin Bucer, who had come to England to take refuse from the emperor, gave it structure under the forty-two articles. There was regression back into Catholicism under Mary Tudor, 1553-1558. During her reign about 300 Protestant leaders were put to death. After she herself died, her half-sister Elizabeth, ruled wisely from 1558-1603, following a moderate path by designing a church with formal worship to appease Catholics and Anglicans who tended toward Catholicism, and a Reformed creed, the 37 articles, which was essentially Thomas Cranmer’s 42 articles less five.
The cause did not fare well under James I Stuart who proved a big disappointment to the Reformed community despite the fact that he was brought up a Protestant in Scotland. James never converted to Catholicism, but his policies tended in that direction. He did call the Hampton Court conference in 1611 that resulted in the King James translation of the Bible into English.
The Puritans who were committed to the cause of the Reformation led the revolt in 1640 that resulted in the commonwealth replacing the monarchy. It was at that point that Parliament mandated a confession of faith, a larger and shorter catechism and an order of public worship. Together these documents are known as the Westminster Standards which became known as the “queen of confessions” and are adopted by nearly all confessing English-speaking Reformed churches.
The 121 Westminster Divines met in the Jerusalem Chapel at the Abbey. It was so named when king Henry IV (from the house of Lancaster) had a stroke on his way to Jerusalem. He was taken to this room where there was a warm fire, and when he awakened from his coma, he asked if he was in Jerusalem, Thus, the room gained the name Jerusalem Chapel. I have not been in that chapel, but I have stood many times in the nave of this spectacular Gothic church built originally in the twelfth century.
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