Books of Homilies in Anglican Formularies
The Books of Homilies are two authorized collections of sermons that occupy a distinctive place among the historic formularies of Anglicanism. Prepared for public instruction during the English Reformation, they supplied doctrinal teaching for parishes at a time when many clergy were not licensed or equipped to preach regularly. Their authority is connected especially with Article XXXV of the Thirty-Nine Articles, while Article XI points to a homily on justification for fuller exposition. Although they are no longer normally read as a regular part of parish worship, the Homilies remain an important witness to the theology assumed by the classical Book of Common Prayer and the reformed settlement of the Church of England.[1]
Historical development
The First Book of Homilies was issued in 1547, early in the reign of Edward VI and before the first English Book of Common Prayer of 1549. It provided set sermons on such subjects as the reading of Holy Scripture, the condition of humanity in sin, salvation, faith, good works, Christian love, and moral conduct. Its practical purpose was not only literary or doctrinal, but pastoral: it gave parish clergy a common body of teaching to read aloud in churches.
A second collection followed in the Elizabethan period and was associated with the completion of the received Articles of Religion in 1571. Together the two books came to contain thirty-three homilies.[2] The later sermons addressed matters including worship, prayer, the sacraments, church order, repentance, and social duty. Their production reflected the Church of England's effort to establish a common Protestant teaching ministry alongside common prayer.
Doctrinal place
Within Anglican theology, the Homilies have usually been treated as subordinate but significant formularies. Article XXXV commends them as containing sound doctrine and directs that they be read by ministers so that the people may understand them. This places the Homilies in close relation to the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Ordinal, and the Book of Common Prayer, though not in the same category as the ecumenical creeds.
The Homilies are especially important for interpreting the doctrinal language of the English Reformation. They give extended treatments of themes that the Articles state briefly, including the authority of Scripture, justification, repentance, faith, good works, and the nature of Christian obedience. Article XI, on the justification of man, explicitly refers readers to a homily for a fuller account of that doctrine. For this reason, Anglican theologians have often used the Homilies as evidence for the intended sense of the Articles rather than as a complete theological system in their own right.
Use and interpretation
The public reading of homilies functioned as a form of catechesis. In parishes where preaching was limited, a minister could read an authorized sermon in the place where instruction would otherwise have been given. This made the Homilies part of a broader program of formation that also included the Catechism, the lectionary, and the ordinary offices of Morning and Evening Prayer.
In later Anglican practice, regular liturgical use of the Homilies declined as clerical education, licensed preaching, and printed sermons became more common. Their continuing importance has therefore been chiefly historical and doctrinal. Evangelical Anglicans have often emphasized their Reformation teaching on Scripture and justification, while other Anglican interpreters have read them as documents of a particular sixteenth-century settlement. Because several homilies contain strong polemic shaped by the controversies of their age, modern readers commonly distinguish their enduring doctrinal claims from their historical rhetoric.
The Books of Homilies remain a useful source for understanding classical Anglican doctrine. They show how the Church of England sought to join common worship, public Scripture, and parish instruction, and they illuminate the theological world in which the Prayer Book tradition developed.[3]