The Theology and Spirituality of Mary Tudor's Church by William Wizeman

Author:William Wizeman [Wizeman, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General
ISBN: 9781351881302
Google: SmdQDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-09-29T03:39:21+00:00

Charity within the church

The active and communal aspects of Christianity were iterated by Marian theologians in their focus on the quality of charity in the church. Bonner’s 1547 homily on Christian charity reappeared in the Marian collection, followed by Harpsfield’s new sermon on the evil of breaking it. In the latter, Harpsfield insisted that Christ demanded perfect charity, and Christians could strive to fulfil Christ’s command through the gift of grace.202 It was of this striving to be charitable that the Christian’s vocation consisted. According to Hogarde’s Mirrour of loue, charity was the only form of love acceptable to God, and could only be found within Christ’s church. He warned Protestants that ‘Sanctam ecclesiam while we do dispise, / Catholicam charitie shall neuer arise’.203 Belief in the ‘doctryne Apostolike’ must be coupled with ‘an hartye love to God’ including charitable deeds; together they comprised ‘the works of ryght beleif’.204 Thus, the Profitable doctryne and the Honest instruction for children listed the Ten Commandments, the seven virtues, the Beatitudes and the seven deadly sins to instil comprehension of the requirements of charity, and the latter work presented Christ’s two-fold commandment and the corporal and spiritual works of mercy as well. The former presented the Commandments as two tables, the first delineating those obligations to God, the second containing ‘all those thynges whych wee owe vnto oure neyghboure’. Bonner, like Harpsfield, stated that the Commandments must be fulfilled completely, for love of God remained inextricably bound with love of neighbour. He compared the Decalogue to a musical instrument; if one string was out of tune, it could not produce true music. And although God had expressed most of the Commandments as negative imperatives, these implied that God wished his people to realize the converse, which were also explained in detail. Carranza discussed the Decalogue using the same approach.205

Marian writers also encouraged charitable giving and service, and their call to aid the poor was no doubt partly due to the rampant famine and disease of Mary’s reign.206 ‘Poor relief was therefore both a meritorious work and an urgent social necessity’, which was impressed upon the laity by Bonner, Pole, and Marian writers.207 Peryn encouraged readers to “[d]o the workes of mercy bodely and gostly vnto euery man that nedeth[,] wyth all thy hart as vnto thy selfe”. Christians should show compassion for the needy, and giving alms held benefits for the souls who gave and the bodies who received. Yet charitable deeds could not be undertaken without God’s grace at work in their lives.208 Edgeworth underlined the divine source of human generosity when he praised hospitality as ‘the bounteousnes and largenes in geuing … one to another, euery one releuing an others nede, according to the power that God hath lent them’.209 Peryn also wrote that his meditations remained secondary to ‘the deedes of charitie for your euen chrysten’.210 Marian authors made the priority of aiding the needy explicit, as did Pole and Bonner in their episcopal injunctions.211 At least in London, benefactions to the poor were increasing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.