On the Royal Ecclesiastical Supremacy of the Queen

The XXXIX Articles of Religion - Article XXXVII (first three sections).

[/QUOTE] Of the Civil Magistrates

The Queen’s Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other her Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign Jurisdiction.

Where we attribute to the Queen’s Majesty the chief government, by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God’s Word, or of the Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen doth most plainly testify; but only that prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evildoers.

The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England. [/QUOTE]

But compare that with 1 Corinthians 14:34/35 and 1 Timothy 2:11/12 which unequivocally and plainly state that the proper sphere of women in ecclesiastical affairs is that of subordination to men.

 

Literally every premise of this question is flawed.

 

But how is it flawed?

 

For starters, it’s an example of the four-term fallacy: the passages cited do not know of “ecclesiastical affairs”, so the meaning of the phrase in your argument is ambiguous. The Queen’s role is not as a minister within the Church, so the passage even on a maximalist reading would not apply to the Monarch. The meaning of neither passage you cited is plain or unequivocal. What we have in those passages are St. Paul’s answers to questions troubling the churches in particular places, but we do not know what exactly these questions were or why St. Paul chose to address them specifically. This is where solid exegesis needs to come in and do the heavy lifting. Furthermore, St. Paul’s authorship of 1 Timothy is widely disputed, which makes it that much more difficult to determine the original context.

 

First you object that "the passages cited do not know of “ecclesiastical affairs”, so the meaning of the phrase in your argument is ambiguous. The Queen’s role is not as a minister within the Church, so the passage even on a maximalist reading would not apply to the Monarch". To this I answer: even if 1 Corinthians 14:34/35 had been limited to just formal worship services, 1 Timothy 2:11/12 isn't. It applies not just to the formal worship service, but the broader context shows that it also applies to the very polity of the church itself at any level, parochial, diocesan, national, or even the worldwide church itself (1 Timothy 3:16). 1 Timothy 2:12 not only forbids women to publicly teach and/or minister in the Word and Sacraments in the liturgy, it also forbids them to exercise authority over men, not just in the liturgy, but in the broader context of the polity of the Church. Therefore all acts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over any national church are forbidden to women. And it makes no distinction between the reigning queen and any British female subject, alien, or foreigner.

The next several objections you make are precisely those to which it is not lawful for Christians who believe in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures to give the benefit of the doubt. Firstly, you object that "The meaning of neither passage you cited is plain or unequivocal", but that is one of the assumptions we are not at liberty to make when studying, reading, or obeying the Bible. Oh, but on the contrary, the straightforward face-value meaning of the text must not be departed from without necessity. Your second objection is that "What we have in those passages are St. Paul’s answers to questions troubling the churches in particular places, but we do not know what exactly these questions were or why St. Paul chose to address them specifically": but the reasons Paul gives for his rulings in 1 Corinthians 14:34/35 & 1 Timothy 2:11/12 are universal, perpetual, and natural reasons. It is a maxim that when a law is special but its reasons are general, it must be presumed to be of general applicability: QUANDO EST LEX SPECIALIS, RATIO AUTEM GENERALIS, GENERALITER EST INTELLIGENDA. Your last objection that "Furthermore, St. Paul’s authorship of 1 Timothy is widely disputed, which makes it that much more difficult to determine the original context", denies (or at least weakens belief in) the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. For these conscientious reasons, I cannot accept the objections you have made.

 

The argument as put is a failure to comprehend what is at stake here. The articles and the principles of the English Church in part represent a Response to the exercise of political power by the Bishop of Rome. In essence the Act of Separation was to assert the autocephalous nature of the English Church. The Church as such enjoys the protection of our Godly Sovereign, and the Stewardship of the temporal well being of the Church. The Monarch, male of female, is not enjoined to teach salvation, nor exercise spiritual authority over men. Any attempt to argue that they article is intended to suppress the Authority of either the Monarch, or the scripture, would seem to simply be based in an errant male chauvinism. The arguments based on scripture must be well removed from such a position if they are to be heard.

Arguments over the appointment of Bishops have been part of English Church History, at least as far back as Stigand who was appointed by Edward the Confessor.

 

What is the basis for the assumption that all Scripture is equally clear? St. Peter himself said that it wasn't, and that was in reference to St. Paul:

Here we have one inspired leader in the Church saying the writings of another inspired leader- leaders who were not only contemporaries but also knew each other personally - are difficult to understand, i.e., not always patient of a simple interpretation.

No it does not. That is an outside assumption that you are importing into the interpretive process. The Scriptures are what they are because God inspired them; who He used to transmit the words is of secondary importance. Modern scholarship has pretty thoroughly demolished older assumptions about authorship in some cases (e.g., the Epistle to the Hebrews), and I'm not talking about Higher Criticism and the Documentary Hypothesis with regard to the Pentateuch, the Book of Isaiah, etc., or speculation about Q and the prehistory of the Gospels; I'm talking about comparative textual analysis of the writings we already have. There's no turning back the clock on that. At the earliest point, the true authors of these texts were probably known (and were recognized as inspired), and over time that knowledge was lost, and some writings were attributed by tradition to other authors. It is no disrespect to the Scriptures to correct such errors now. No one understands them to be any less inspired because of that. That issue is a relatively minor one in the world of textual criticism. For example, some sentences (and even some entire passages) made their way into the Scriptural text, that are not supported by the best manuscript evidence we have today. Many modern translations have excised those interpolations (while typically retaining them in footnotes, which is probably where they were to begin with, i.e., existing as glosses in the margin). Anglicans have dealt with these issues for centuries - and couldn't afford to simply ignore them - because these discoveries had a direct impact on the Prayer Book itself. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer includes the Johannine Comma in the Epistle Reading for the First Sunday after Easter, for example; subsequent editions of the Prayer Book have excluded it (including the recently published International version of the 1662 BCP). How users of the 1662 BCP should treat such parts of the liturgy is an interesting question.

 

Here is what the Ecclesiastical Supremacy of the reigning monarch meant in actual practice. In the days of H R M Queen Elizabeth I (Tudor), she actually exercised personal government over the affairs of the church, often in the most tyrannical and unconstitutional manner.

Case in Point #1: The Rev. Archbishop Grindal (Archbishop of Canterbury). At one point, H R M Queen Elizabeth I gave him a rash & tyrannical order concerning church matters (but her act of doing so has always been contrary to woman's proper sphere of subjection in the ecclesiastical estate). He refused to obey it; as a result she in her great fury sequestered him for many years. Both houses of Convocation humbly petitioned the Queen for his release, but she unmercifully refused to grant it! See Fuller's Church History, Book IX, page 120, Neal's Hist. Pur. Volume 1., pages 358, 374.

Case in Point #2: The actual de facto polity according to which H R M Queen Elizabeth I governed the Church of England! When Elizabeth I enacted certain statutes for the repression of the Nonconformist Puritans, she, contrary to the wishes of the Anglican prelates, and judgment of her councillors, used severity in order to maintain her ecclesiastical supremacy (Zurich Letters, pages 263, 264). According to Neal, I. 108, a historian stated that the Queen's threat, in her letter to the Commissioners concerning the Separatists, "was a vast stretch of the prerogative, there being no law as yet to disfranchise a man for not coming to church". But as it turns out, the royal prerogative of ordaining rites and ceremonies not ordained by statute (1 Elizabeth, Chapter 2, Section 13), implies the prerogative of punishing and taking vengeance and retaliation as not ordained by statute (Blackstone, Book IV, pages 122, 123). That was the Queen's understanding of the Royal Supremacy in Church affairs, and it is with this understanding that she delegated to her commissions such tyrannical and unjust powers she did! According to Macaulay, Vol 1, page 27, "the king could not legislate without the consent of his Parliament", and according to Hume, Volume 3, Chapter 41, page 127, "Prerogative in general, especially the Supremacy, was supposed in that age [Elizabeth's] to involve powers which no law, precedent, or reason could limit and determine". As it turns out, the supremacy that Elizabath claimed in general was known to involve indeterminate powers, and it was specifically donated to her by an Act of Parliament entitled the Act of Supremacy, and it was only on the grounds of being a donation that she claimed it. That act of parliament consented to all and singular of the injunctions which she might issue with the advice of her Commissioners and/or metropolitan (which was the only mere nominal limitation on her ecclesiastical powers). Yea, but even worse, neither the commissioners nor metropolitan (except the Abp. Grindal!) had any rule of "advice" but her Majesty's will.

Now in the case of Queen Anne I (Stuart!), there was a certain Mr Whiston who in 1707 was reputed to teach certain "strange and erroneous doctrines contrary to God's written word". The Anglican prelates in their petition to the Queen testified that "Mr Whiston had advanced several damnable and blasphemous assertions against the doctrine and worship of the ever blessed Trinity", and in their censure, "they earnestly beseech all Christian people, by the mercies of Christ, to take heed how they give ear to the false doctrines, as they tender the honour and glory of our Saviour, &c." According to Burnett's History of his Times, Volume 4, pages 11, 33, 34, 35, 94: "That, by the act of 1st. of Elizabeth, which defined what Elizabeth, which defined what should be judged "heresy, that judgment was declared to be in the crown. The bishops, in convocation, drew out several propositions from Whiston's books, which seemed plainly to be reviving of Arianism, and censured them as such. The lower house (excepting to one proposition) censured them in the same manner. This the archbishop, being then disabled by the gout, sent by one of the bishops to the queen, for her assent (page 1194, Approbation), who promised to CONSIDER OF IT. At their (the convocation's) meeting next winter, no answer being come from the queen, two bishops were sent to ask it, and to receive her majesty's pleasure in it; but she could not tell what was become of the paper the archbishop had sent her. So an extract of the censure was again sent to her; but she THOUGHT NOT fit to send any answer to it. So Whiston's affair slept, and all farther proceedings against him were stopped, since the queen did NOT CONFIRM the step that we had made"!

Obs. 1: According to Queen Anne's understanding, the judgment of what is, or is not, to be condemned as heresy is, by the Act of Supremacy and Uniformity, lodged wholly in the crown. The reigning or regent Queen, when she wears it, is the proper, the sole judge what doctrines and books shall be censured as heretical, what principles and tenets are, or are not, contrary to the holy orthodox faith. But according to the teachings of St Paul the Apostle, such a jurisdiction is contrary to the subordination the divine law demands of women in the ecclesiastical estate (1 Timothy 2:11/12).

Obs. 2: The two houses of Convocation, having referred to several passages from Mr. Whiston's book, found them to be heretical. But then, they sent no less than 2 bishops, to petition the queen to approve their censure, and desire her confirmation, without which their censure was NULL and VOID! Upon giving their petition, they awaited her majesty's pleasure concerning this affair.

Obs. 3: The actual result was that she did not think it fit to send any answer to it. As a result, the censures were without any legal or canonical effect. The result is that the reigning/regent QUEEN was now empowered not just to teach and/or usurp authority over the man (in violation of 1 Timothy 2:12!), but also to HENPECK and exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction over ALL all the archbishops, bishops, and priests of the Anglican Church, to overthrow their most solemn censures, and cause all their spiritual proceedings to stop at once and forever, even in affairs where the prelates sincerely thought that damnable, strange, erroneous, and heretical doctrines were being promulgated throughout England, and even within the Anglican Church itself, contrary to the first five articles of the 39 articles of religion, and tending to the eternal DAMNATION of THOUSANDS of professing Christian souls in England!

Delight is not seemly for a fool; much less for a servant to have rule over princes - Proverbs 19:10

 

I'll leave it to my former fellow subjects of Her Majesty across the pond to address this, as I do not have a dog in this fight and think it rather pointless to argue. Despite what I'm told some Labourite republicans may desire, the Monarchy isn't going anywhere and if the occupant of the throne happens to be a woman again in the future, then that Queen will be the Supreme Governor of the Church, regardless of some non-Anglicans' protestations.

 

J_Jeanniton, I have asked before, and I will ask again. What is it you are trying to achieve on this Forum? You are not an Anglican and I do wonder why you attempt to stir up trouble here with your ridiculously long posts.

I think you you will find that you are very much out of date by a very long time. Her Majesty The Queen bears two titles, inter alia, that are related to the Church of England only and not to the rest of the Anglican Church. Her Majesty is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Defender of the Faith. However, they are titles only. The Queen has no authority in the Church of England.

She is involved in making some appointments, e.g. bishops, deans, but she is invloved in name only. She appoints the person she is advised to appoint by the prime minister. She makes no personal choice in the matter. Since the premiership of Gordon Brown every prime minister has advised the Queen to appoint the Church of England's preferred choice for the post.

Her Majesty The Queen has absolutely no authority whatsoever over the Church of England. In the Church of England we believe the head of the Church is Our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

I am trying to make the point that even the mere nominal honorary figurehead title of being "Supreme Governor of the Church of England" is a title for which the entire female sex, according to the teachings of Paul the Apostle is ineligible for the same natural and scriptural reasons that she is ineligible to be pastor, elder, bishop, vicar, curate, parson, dean, archdeacon, or archbishop in the Church of Christ or exercise any ecclesiastical jurisdiction over men in Church affairs.

The supreme jurisdiction of the King in all causes ecclesiastical, as well as civil, is analogous to the role of a father of a family; likewise even the mere nominal title "supreme governor of the church of ..." any professing Christian nation is analogous to the title of father in any given human family. In the earliest times, every father of a family had supreme jurisdiction in all causes ecclesiastical and spiritual in his own house --- but only insofar as the Law of God allowed; and with the understanding that the nature of his jurisdiction was jus dicere, non jus dare (i.e. declare what the divine law has always been, not invent a new law). The nature of his jurisdiction in sacris was only executive, didactic, disciplinary, ministerial and ceremonial. He had no natural right to change or abrogate or override God’s standing divine office of worship --- only apply the Divine natural law or whatever divine positive institutions God may see fit to reveal to him. This form of family jurisdiction tended to perpetuate the knowledge of God according to the dictates of natural and revealed religion.

The Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of a Constitutional Monarch in a Christian State with a National Church is of a Patriarchal nature: it is analogous to the role of a father in a family.

According to Vern Poythress’s essay in Piper/Grudem, “The Church as Family,” pp. 233-47, the fact that distinct roles assigned to the different sexes at home also requires that because the Church is the Family of God, there should also be a corresponding difference in the proper roles assigned to the different sexes in the liturgy and polity of the Church. Paul the Apostle teaches that the fundamental principles governing relationships in human households are binding in conscience in all matters pertaining to the liturgy and polity of the church as God’s household (1 Tim 3:15; 5:1-2; cf. 3:4-5). Two important elements in the relations of the members to one another in the liturgy and polity of the Church are those of sex and age (1 Tim 5:1-2). A good application would be this: A woman, as capable and gifted as she may be, not just can never function as a father in a human household, but also would not even dream of even being called a "father" in a family, even if she is a widow with minor children and not yet remarried! Likewise, it is not lawful for a woman, as capable and gifted as she may be, to function as a “father” in God’s household, or allow herself to called any name more suitable to the state of being a father in God's household. She may indeed function as a “mother” in God’s household (cf. Sarah, 1 Pet 3:6), take honorary names and titles more suitable to the state of motherhood, and exercise the roles indicated in 1 Tim 5:2; 3:11; 5:9-10, 14; Titus 2:3-5; and 2 Tim 1:5. But, just as the roles (and honorary titles, though they be of the same rank but differ in grammatical gender!) of men and women are not interchangeable in human families, so they are not in the church family.

Thus to allow a woman to bear even the mere nominal title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England in all Causes Ecclesiastical would be analogous to granting to a woman, or any mother, the mere nominal title of father in a human family. It is all the more analogous to granting a woman the mere nominal title of spiritual father in God’s Household. It was just shown that a woman, as capable and gifted as she may be, can never be called a “father” in a family. Such a nominal title, honorary as it may be, as held by the mother of a family, or by any woman in any church, is contrary to the very idea of what defines a father as a father rather than a mother (for, by definition a MALE parent is a FATHER and a FEMALE parent is a MOTHER). It is therefore contrary not only to God’s laws, it is contrary also to the nature, reason, and fitness of things!

For this reason, it is repugnant to the natural and revealed divine laws and principles governing the essence of family relations for any reigning queen to be invested even with the mere nominal title of supreme governor of the Church of England, or any church anywhere in the Universe.

 

I am sure Her Majesty’s Government will take it under advisement.

 

There is something I don't understand. Just how was I proselytizing in the things I had written, and in the information I had presented?

 

I think when you look at what happened to Edward VIII when he sought to comitt matrimony with Wallis Simpson. The ABoC told he he had to abdicate. The relationship between the Church and the Crown is not a simple authoritarian structure. There is, despite some soft areas, a distinction between matters temporal and matters spiritual. Your argument against this given may have been seen as and argument against Anglican foundations by trying to make the Articles say something that we can demonstrate is not how they have been received and understood.

 

I think that your final sentence, and the posts that follow it up, could be contrued as an overt attempt at proselatisation for a particularly rabid form of Male Supremacy sectarianism. Don't you?
.

 

I cannot accept your reply. For, see How to defend the belief only men should be ordained? | Anglican Forums. Stalwart contends that the plain meaning of certain verses in Scripture all militate against women's ordination to the clergy. According to Stalwart,

Stalwart said: ↑
The argument for the traditional side is pretty simple: men and women are not equal. Man was made in the image of God, but woman was made in the image of man. Man being covered in Church is impious, but women being uncovered in Church is impious. Woman cannot teach in the Church. And between the two of them, woman is to obey the husband, while the man is to honor his wife. This will sound terrible to most people today, but it is God's honest truth (literally). These are verbatim quotes from the Scriptures. There is simply no case from Scripture, or Tradition, or Reason, for egalitarianism or the marxist equality of the sexes.

I wonder if Stalwart is contending that women are essentially and ontologically inferior to men.

 

Now, as to your proposed distinction between matters temporal and matters spiritual: the ONLY distinction between the spiritual matters and the temporal matters of the Church that the 37th article of religion makes is that the reigning monarch is not called to liturgically minister to the congregation in the Word and Sacraments, yet, even so, His Majesty the King has authority to compel and coerce the duly appointed clergy to do so in their respective parishes, local congregations, dioceses, archdioceses, etc.