The Forgotten Formulary: The Ordinal & Apostolic Succession
“ Cranmer did not believe that the apostles passed down the Holy Spirit through an unbroken line of holy bishops like a pipeline. No, for Cranmer, the author of the founding formularies of Anglicanism, apostolic succession meant the passing down of apostolic teaching. Christian faith and morals had been divinely revealed and recorded in the Bible. Its saving truths were unalterable. Each generation of the church was to receive, witness to and pass on the Bible and its message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone.”
The Historic Anglican formularies that are named in Canon Law of the Church of England are three: the Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal. The Homilies have acquired the sense and authority of a “formulary” because they are referred to twice in the Articles (Articles 11 and 35) and generally accepted over time as the teaching of our Anglican fathers.
Of the formularies, the most neglected is the Ordinal: The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons According to the Order of the Church of England. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer wrote the ordination services in 1550, the same rites that are substantially reproduced in the 1662 Prayer Book. Compared to the Medieval Catholic rites, the Reformation Ordinal was much shorter and simpler, recognizing the historicity of the three orders of ordained ministry (bishop, priest and deacon), and emphasizing the preaching of the Bible. “Above all, the English Ordinal is distinguished from its medieval precursors in the emphasis it places upon the Holy Scriptures as the norm by which the Ministry of the Church should teach the Faith and pattern both its own life and the lives of those committed to its charge” (Massey Shepherd). In the 1552 Ordinal, Cranmer refocused the nature of the ordained ministry by mandating that all three orders would be given copies of the Bible at their ordinations rather than the Medieval symbols of a sacrifice: chalice and paten (communion plate and cup) for a priest, and a ring and mitre for bishops. The emphasis on preaching and proclaiming the word is again seen in the prayer that ends the service for the Ordination of a Priest (1662):
Most merciful Father, we beseech thee to send upon these thy servants, thy heavenly blessing, that they may be clothed with righteousness, and that thy word spoken by their mouths, may have such success, that it many never be spoken in vain. Grant also that we may have grace to hear and receive what they shall deliver out of thy most holy Word, or agreeable to the same, as the means of our salvation; that in all thy words and deeds we may seek thy glory, and the increase of thy Kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
What is the work of a priest? Cranmer was clear that “the priest should declare the death and passion of Christ, and all the people should look upon the cross on the Mount of Calvary, and see Christ there hanging, and the blood flowing out of His side into their wounds to heal all their sores; and the priest and people all together should laud and thank instantly the physician of their souls. And this is the priest’s and people’s sacrifice, not to be propitiators for sin, but (as Emissene saith) to worship continually in mystery that which was but once offered for the price of sin” (Cranmer quoted by G. W. Bromiley, Thomas Cranmer Theologian). Cranmer denies “that there is any more promise of grace in the committing of the ecclesiastical office than in the committing of the civil office” (Bromiley).