But the south did not respond to the voice of resistance that sounded from the north, and such as had much to lose even there, standing very commonly aloof, the rebellion was easily crushed3. § 10. Subsequently, the Romish party chiefly depended upon the dexterous use of royal favour. Its most remarkable, but discreditable, triumph was in 1539; when Henry was persuaded to come down to the House of Lords, and secure the passing of the Act of Six Articles by his personal weight1. This cruel statute made burning the penalty for denying transubstantiation, and left any who should recant such denial, still liable to the total confiscation of property. It adjudged to death as felons, all who maintained the necessity of communicating in both kinds; or who denied the divine prohibition of sacerdotal marriages, or the divine ratification of vows of chastity; or who attacked private masses, or auricular confession. In 1544, this act was modified by another, which allowed no prosecution under it without a previous presentment, legally made by a jury, and limited presentments to offences committed within the twelve months immediately precedings. § 11. During Henry's whole reign, the church remained in appearance completely Romish. Excepting the English litany prepared for a particular occasion, he left the ritual as he found it, as he did nearly the whole framework of religious belief. But by his means, the established system was completely undermined. Many doctrines long current, were confessedly of doubtful authority. None saw them clearly revealed in Scripture, and many could find no trace of them there, but rather of matter in opposition to them. Their only ascertained dependence was the Roman see; an authority which England now repulsed with scorn, The Bible, too, was opened, at first, unreservedly, and it was never completely sealed again. Thus people formed a habit of distrusting doctrines which would not 3 Herbert's Life and Reign of King Henry VIII. in Kennet's Complete History of England, Lond. 1706. ii. 205. Abp. Cranmer to the Devonshire insurgents. Strype's Cranmer, Ap pendix, 808. 5 Herbert, 242. It was prepared to pray for God's blessing when he was upon the eve of departing on an expedition to France. bear confronting with God's undoubted word. They were, indeed, pretty plainly taught that articles of faith required a scriptural warranty. Subsidiary works of religious instruction, published by authority, were mainly based upon the confession of Augsburg. The primate, who could never be dislodged from a strong-hold upon his royal master's mind, had been in Germany, associated with Lutherans, was known to agree generally with them in opinion, and to be a married man, living privately with his wife, until the Act of Six Articles compelled him to send her away for a time to her relations abroad. The monastic foundations, which were the great seats of papal prejudice, and of debasing superstition, were wholly suppressed. Thus, to say nothing of anti-Romish works by unauthorised polemics, the whole course of national events, during all Henry's latter years, prepared the country for that protestant profession which it speedily embraced. Even the Act of Six Articles, and other ebullitions of Romish intolerance, had this tendency, by irritating the reforming party, and rendering its opponents additionally odious. § 12. On Henry's death, in 1547, the English reformation began in earnest. Edward VI., who succeeded, was, indeed, under ten years old, but he was a child of more than usual promise, and as his tutors, Coxe and Cheke, had imbibed protestant opinions, all the personal weight which one so young could have, was eagerly directed against Romanism. The chief power at the outset of his reign, readily fell into the hands of his maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, who was nominated protector, and created Duke of Somerset. This nobleman at once identified himself with the reformation, and Cranmer's became the leading mind in all the nation's religious affairs. § 13. Within a few weeks, accordingly, of the king's accession, Nicholas Ridley, afterwards bishop of London, preached in the chapel royal against images, and the lustral water of paganism, naturalised among Romanists under the name of holy water'. Much offence was taken in many quarters at this Gloucester Ridley's Life of Dr. don, Lond. 1763. p. 200. Nicholas Ridley, sometime bishop of Lon and other such attacks upon established superstitions; but the government was evidently bent upon their suppression, and nothing could shield them from a daily accumulation of odium and contempt. As the year advanced, royal visitors with protestant instructions, inspected all the country, the first book of Homilies was published, and every parish was to provide itself with the Paraphrase of Erasmus. These unequivocal steps towards a scriptural faith led, in the next year, to a prohibition of the usual processions on Candlemas-day, of ashes on Ash-Wednesday, and of palms on Palm-Sunday'. This was immediately followed by an order for the general removal of images from churches'. Orders for the removal of images abused to superstitious uses had been already given. The movement, however, most decidedly protestant, which distinguished the year 1548, was the compilation of an English liturgy. Abstractedly, there was no violation of Romish principle in this measure, for the papal church framed her service when the congregation spoke Latin; and the Trentine decree against a vernacular tongue in public worship was not promulged until 1562. Nor was the matter produced by the liturgical committee, such generally as to offend Romanists. They might, indeed, regret some omissions, but the bulk of the new English book was translated, and with admirable skill, from the old Latin service'. The whole proceeding, however, was in defiance of inveterate Romish usage, and the new service, by omitting all the superstitious innovations that appeared in the mass-book, gave them a severe rebuke. A catholic position was thus assumed, which papal partisans might asperse and envy, but which dispassionate enquiry would soon show to be greatly above their own. s The Injunctions with which the visitors were furnished for dispersion, may be seen at the beginning of Bp. Sparrow's Collection of Articles, Injunctions, Canons, &c. Lond. 1675. 9 Official circular from Bp. Boner. Heylin's History of the Reformation, Lond. 1674. p. 55. Order of council. Ibid. See Mr. Palmer's Origines Liturgica, or Antiquities of the English Ritual, an excellent work, which filled an inconvenient void in English literature. Former liturgical works had furnished much useful information, but Mr. Palmer's, by exhibiting the originals, where any could be found, has not only given ready access to much useful information, but has also demonstrated the catholic character of the Anglican service. § 14. In 1549, an English ordinal was produced3, and in the following year, the stone altars, which had immemorially ornamented the churches, were removed, to make way for communion-tables. This change, posterity may regret, as needless in itself, and an injudicious sacrifice of a venerable decoration. But contemporaries alone can adequately judge of such questions, and they had undoubtedly a degree of difficulty in weaning the people from inveterate superstitions, which rendered all incentives to them obnoxious. It is, however, plain that a disposition was afloat to war with Romish usages beyond the necessities of the case. In their anxiety to protestantise the country, the English reformers called for assistance from abroad, and thence they secured services of considerable intrinsic value, but qualified by a low-church alloy. The foreign divines came from quarters in which the prelacy had stood aloof when Romanism began to totter, and where, accordingly, there had been some necessity to depart from catholic polity, in order to obtain deliverance from usages and principles unsanctioned by catholic antiquity. As usual under such necessities, the parties did not stop where sound discretion would have allowed them, but incautiously opened a door to endless questions and innovations. § 15. This indiscretion acted upon the English servicebook. A narrow spirit was awake which would hear of nothing in divine worship that could not plead some direct authority in the New Testament. Mere conformity to the tenour of revelation, and an unquestionable connection with primitive times, were deemed insufficient. Hence objectors found many subjects for exception in the new liturgy, and a clamour was raised against it. The young king became a party to this, and it was obviously inexpedient, if not impossible, to leave the service as it had been originally framed. Cranmer, accordingly, bent to a necessity which he could not control; but being anxious to avoid a like evil again, he desired Bucer, and Martyr, two of the learned foreigners then employed in England, to prepare full statements of their objections. Their task was executed 3 Upon the consonance of the English ordinal with antiquity, may be consulted Bp. Burnet's Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of England, Lond. 1677. at considerable length, and in the review of the Common Prayer, which was effected in 1551, their more prominent objections were found to have prevailed. The most important alterations now made, were the omission of any prayer for the dead, and the withdrawal of a liberty to use extreme unction in visiting the sick. In many other particulars, too, a conformity with Romish usages, which Edward's first service-book had enjoined, was now to be discontinued'. The English Prayer-book was, in fact, reduced very nearly to the same form that it has ever since retained. It was, however, not admitted, that any error in principle had found place on the former occasion. On the contrary, objections to the first service-book were expressly attributed to curious and mistaken views, the volume really containing nothing that was not agreeable to God's word and the primitive church'. Thus the alteration was treated as a mere matter rendered expedient by circumstances, and accordingly, members of the church of England have never felt themselves precluded from avowing a preference for the liturgy, as it originally stood. § 16. In 1552, the church of England was provided with a doctrinal test. Forty-two articles of religion were framed, and sanctioned by the convocation, but it is not known whether that body formally examined them, or merely placed them in the hands of a committee'. They do not materially differ from the thirty-nine articles, eventually adopted as the standard of national belief, and it is evident that they were compiled with especial reference to the confession of Augsburg. It was intended also to provide a new body of canon law, and the design was actually carried into effect, but the young king's death rendered it abortive. The provisions, however, which are extensive, remain on record', and have, by their award of capital penalties to blasphemers, and impugners of the first four general councils, given great occasion to recriminate, when Romanists have been taunted with intolerance". There is, The two service-books may be seen side by side in Hamon L'Estrange's Alliance of Divine Offices. Act authorising the second servicebook. Heylin, Hist. Ref. 107. Collier, Eccl. Hist. ii. 325. 7 Published under the title of Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, in the reign of Elizabeth, republished in 1640. Dr. Lingard's History of England, vii. 187. |