Sunday, August 21, 2011

On The Phrase "Protestant Reformed Church"

Lord Hugh Cecil was one of the leading laymen of the Church of England in his time, ative in all matters legal whether in Parliament or Synod. A bill was introduced in Parliament, one not important in itself, which repeatedly refered to the Church of England as the "Protestant Reformed Church". Lord Halifax like his famous layman father was an Anglo-Catholic and of course did not like such a wording, and proposed to Lord Hugh that the phrase be changed to "the Church of England by law established". Lord Hugh answered that he could "agree that is a jejune description of your religious society to announce that you disagree with someone else, and were once worse than you are now."