Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history on this

great city, great city, which is such a rich site for church history.

And I thought being here in London,

we could offer up a summary of the English Reformation.

So here we go, the English Reformation in five acts.

Now this is not like the five acts of Shakespeare's plays. These are acts that are signed by the monarch.

The first is the act of supremacy 1534. This was signed by Henry the 8th. Of course, prior to the Act of Supremacy, England is Roman Catholic and it is a very Roman Catholic country.

And with the Act of supremacy Henry is declaring to be

the head of the Church of England they are breaking from the Church of Rome and

establishing an independent church the Church of England. of work behind the scenes being influenced by Luther and the Continental Reformers

and urging Henry to make that change. So Act number one, the Act of

Supremacy 1534. For Act number two we need to go to 1559,

and now we have Elizabeth Henry's daughter on the throne

and we have the Act of conformity or uniformity.

In between Henry and Elizabeth, we had Edward the 6th

and the reformation made great headway under Edward the 6th, but then we had Queen Mary, Bloody Mary,

who was Catholic to the core, and so she returned Catholicism to England.

Elizabeth is a Protestant, but she doesn't want her country divided

between those who were very radical and their views of the Reformation and

didn't think that the act of supremacy in the Anglican Church went far enough in its reforms and on the other hand the Catholics

she wanted unity among her people so she signed into law the act of conformity or uniformity.

That legislation brought the Puritans into existence.

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