The heritage of the English Reformation is unsurpassable. Its thinkers were disciples in the Augustinian tradition and students in accord with the teaching of the master minds of Continental reform. They eagerly seized upon Reformed Catholicism and molded it into an effective pastoral tool for the English nation and its knowledge of God. Homegrown seeds of orthodox English religiousness planted together with shoots from reawakening nations such as Germany, France, and Italy blended as one to create the flowering of a truly and richly ecumenical pattern of faith and devotion ultimately to be denominated as Anglicanism. Under the hand of divine providence England evolved a firm foundation for Christian thought and praise and the gentle care of the soul. Liturgy, Articles, and Ordinal, now known as Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, all aim at a mature and felt union with Christ on the basis of grace alone.

The original features of authentic Anglicanism are well defined. To listen to many of the Primates of our various westernized provinces, and also to the bishops of our benighted dioceses, would persuade us to think that at the back of Anglicanism there is no worthy classic heritage at all to cherish and guard. Indeed, we are called upon to repent of the circumstances and orderings of providence that shaped our fundamental convictions as a body. Counsel without context is the order of our day. Any unity existing within Anglicanism consists of fragile institutionalism and frothy sentimentality (universalism). Unity is hardly to be found in agreement "in the truth of thy holy Word" or "to the maintenance of thy true religion". Relativism as to notions of truth and revolt against biblical morality have notoriously corroded the witness of Anglicanism. We are frail and effete - the blind leading the blind in the wisdom of fallen man in contradistinction to the message of the apostle Paul outlined in 1 Corinthians 1 (but we preach Christ crucified).

Anglicanism at its most authentic is not solely the creation of Thomas Cranmer but his conviction combined with effort is the embodiment of a consensus among the English Reformers as to what the faith and character of the English church ought to be. As mild and cautious as Cranmer was thought to be, the mettle (intrepidity) of his theological persuasion was iron clad. Over time it slowly evolved, but once formed it was irreversibly resolved.

Doctor Diarmaid Maculloch informs us that Cranmer's "theology was structured by predestination" (page 276, All Things Made New, Oxford). Such a concept expounded in the gospel terms (evangelical warmth) of the divine purpose and compassion in Christ is the solid, indispensable, core of Anglican identity. Remove it and Anglicanism loses its impact and the grandeur of its comprehension and presentation of grace. The Gospel is reduced to autosoterism - salvation by self-effort and human merit. What but grace tilts the obdurate sinner toward God and causes men to differ (1 Corinthians 4:7, Acts 13:48)? For Cranmer and his colleagues knew that human nature was helplessly lost through the Fall and that the divine act of rescue in its initial stages is monergistic. Salvation is of the Lord in an exclusive and sovereign sense.

The doctrine of election as espoused by our Articles of Religion (Article 17) is sweet and comforting, fully confirmed by the plain language and natural sense of Scripture. Only negative and unwarranted speculation on a theme hardly broached in the pages of Holy Scripture (preterition or a just "passing by" of the impenitent) sours the taste of sovereign grace to the tongues of its dissenters. Arminianism and all its effects and offshoots to the detriment of the wellbeing and witness of the Christian Church are the result of the philosophic attitude of natural man probing into the mind of God beyond the bounds of his clear revelation where the heralded advance of unaided grace in the deliverance of rebel man rings out aloud in eloquent and joyful testimony to the praise of a generous and loving Lord.

Professor Maculloch opines that predestination is "a theological concept which Anglicanism on the whole decided to treat with caution" (ibid). It was strongly affirmed throughout the first seven decades of English Protestantism until Laudianism began to dilute the Reformational emphasis of the Ecclesia Anglicana, and while an often vocal Augustinian remnant retained its allegiance to the doctrine of grace the retreat from so-called Calvinism has enervated the influence of Anglicanism for the cause of truth.

Electing love was not the invention of Jean Calvin. He was merely in the lineage of some of the greatest minds of prior Christendom (Anselm, Aquinas, Bernard, etc) and tutored by such theologians as Luther and Bucer, an especially trusted mentor, and Calvin simply echoed the thought of Peter Martyr Vermigli, Calvin's equal. Each of these individuals contributed to the shape of Anglicanism through influence upon or association with Archbishop Cranmer. The strands that tie Anglicanism to Augustinianism are many and Augustine immersed himself in apostolic doctrine, for, as someone clever has rhymed it: St. Paul said it, and Augustine read it. Perhaps we may add that the Reformation spread it. "It" must be retained if we are to be restored in true character and fulfill our calling.

The Rev. Roger Salter is an ordained Church of England minister where he had parishes in the dioceses of Bristol and Portsmouth before coming to Birmingham, Alabama to serve as Rector of St. Matthew's Anglican Church