In this final part of his essay on Justification by faith in Anglican history, Bishop FA explores the “lowered market” of what might now be called “cheap grace” among late 17th and 18th century Anglican writers, a time of theological aberration from the Prayer Book norms which had earlier been set out by Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes, and then the recovery of those norms by the leaders of the 18th century Evangelical revival. He concludes with a trenchant reflection on their continued importance amidst the late modern culture of the self.
III. “LOWERED MARKET”, ANGLICAN TEACHING
Henry Hammond (1605-60) can well stand as the leader of the school of thought that wrote during the horrific events of the English Civil War and the Interregnum in the middle of the 17th century. Once again, the formal cause of justification was the crucial issue in dispute, but this time what was proposed differed not only from Roman Catholicism, but from Hooker and the classical Anglicans.
Hammond and many of his contemporaries claimed that the formal cause, or that which made our justification what it is, is the imputation of our faith not the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Jesus Christ by his atonement “hath