Chapter II: Preface

The Reformation is one of the most remarkable events in our history, whether considered in relation to politics or religion; for its influence was most powerful upon both. My own reading, profession, and taste have led me to regard it in the latter rather than in the former light; and therefore, brief as the following sketch is, it will not be found of the nature of an abridgment of larger histories of the Reformation which have contemplated it in all its many bearings, but a continuous, though succinct account, of its rise, progress, and consummation, chiefly considered as a great Revolution of the Church. I have avoided, as far as I could, taking my materials at second hand. I have been governed in my choice of them by a desire to seize upon such as, being characteristic in kind, might not be oppressive in number; and I have worked them up into a whole, with less regard to the line and rule by which others may have wrought already, than to the positions into which they seemed of themselves to fall most naturally. If in my treatment of the many delicate and difficult questions which such a subject stirs, I have former writers with me, it is well. I have not, however, constrained myself to seek out their path and pursue it, though I am too conscious of my own deficiencies, and of the extreme uncertainty of history, to be otherwise than pleased, if I happen to strike into it unawares. If on the same occasions, I have the good fortune to agree with the voice of my own times, it is well too: it is folly to be singular, except for the purpose of being right; but still I have not hearkened out for that voice, and studiously walked by it. I have gone as my facts directed me, taking them as I found them, unpacked. For those facts I have generally given my authorities, that my readers may judge for themselves of the credit due to them; and for the speculations which accompany them, whether doctrinal or practical, I may say that they are meant to serve the cause of truth and equity, not of party; it is for others to say whether they are reasonable, and to let them prevail only so far as they prove so--_valeant quantum valent_.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

_St. Mary’s Parsonage,_

_Conversion of St. Paul, 1837._

My Dear Brother:

When you proposed to me that I should write an Introduction to Mr. Blunt’s “Sketch of the Reformation in England,” included, at my suggestion, in your “Library of Christian Knowledge,” I saw an admirable opportunity to invite attention to that great crisis of the Christian world; and I consented. As I meditated on the subject, it deepened in interest, and rose in elevation, and increased in magnitude, till it became absorbing and overwhelming. I felt that _an Essay on the English Reformation_, that should trace it from its true beginnings, contemplate all its bearings, and carry out its just conclusions, was a work to fill a volume, and to take up years. Is not the “Sketch” itself--I was thus brought to think--which Mr. Blunt has drawn, the very thing best suited to the present purpose? In its design, a bird’s-eye view of that illustrious passage in the history of man; in its execution, rapid, vigorous, picturesque; the manliest conceptions in the raciest words; so intensely interesting that he who takes it up will never lay it down unread, nor read it without the strongest impulse to read more--surely, this is the very result to which I proposed to address myself; and to attract attention to the study of the English Reformation, and to make men in love with its ennobling themes, and to imbue their minds with its instructive lessons, and to possess their hearts with its inspiring influences, and to inflame them with its martyr spirit, the book itself shall be its own best introduction.

Were I to designate, dear Hooker, the branch of study which has fallen into the most unreasonable neglect, and which yet would overpay, with most abundant, and with richest fruits, the utmost cost of prosecution, it should be without a doubt, the study of _Church History_. “It is not St. Augustine’s nor St. Ambrose’s works,” Lord Bacon well remarks,[1] “that will make so wise a divine”--he might as well have said, _so wise a man_--“as ecclesiastical history, thoroughly read and observed.” “There is, in good truth,”--we justify, while we illustrate, the words of the great Philosopher, by the language of one who is himself their living illustration, the present Principal of King’s College, London,[2] “there is, in good truth, no way so certain to lead us to truth, no way so certain to lead us to _fixed, calm, and Christian views in divinity_ as the study of it, _by the way of history_. If we take up a ‘system of divinity,’ whether in the shape of a body of Articles, or a regular treatise, comprising a discussion of all the great points of the Christian covenant, useful and necessary as such things are, each in its own way, yet it cannot be but that they present all these great points to us in a controversial view and with a controversial air. This surely cannot be desirable. Our concern with the great doctrines of the Gospel covenant is to govern our hearts, lives, thoughts and words by them, to bring the whole man into subjection to those awful truths which God himself revealed to us in order to teach us how we are to live here, and how to live with him hereafter.” Now it is precisely these “fixed, calm, and Christian views in divinity” which, in this age, and especially in this country, are most wanted--which are sought for in vain in the din of religious controversy and the stir of religious excitement--and for the want of which, to the joy of the infidel, and to the shame and grief of the meek searcher after truth, who would walk humbly with his God, Christianity, at times, appears almost unchristianised. And the inquiries which would lead men to them--which securing to us, upon the certain warrant of “Holy Scripture and ancient authors,” a sound rule of faith, should establish for us a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical religion, and as it were, domesticate among us that serene and dovelike Christianity, which the sweetest spirit of our age[3] illustrates well, when he speaks of the “_soothing tendency_” of the Prayer-book--am I not right when I say, that, as Christians, not only, but as patriots and philosophers, there are no investigations more worthy of us--and do I greatly err in the belief, that already, among the thoughtful and the good, there is a preparation to receive them favourably, and to bestow on those who lead the way that best reward and most distinguished honour, their confidence and acquiescence?

Chiefly, however, to two portions of the ever-flowing stream of history would I, if the permission were but given me, direct the public mind--the history of _the Church in the first ages_, and the history of _the English Reformation_. THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST AGES were God’s “eye witnesses and ministers of the word.” It is a maxim of the courts, “_expositio contemporanea est fortissima_.” The first reception is the best. As we owe the integrity of the text to them, so are we their debtors for the certainty of the interpretation. “The contradiction of tongues,” saith Lord Bacon,[4] “doth every where meet us, out of the tabernacle of God; therefore, whithersoever thou shalt turn thyself, thou shalt find no end of controversies except thou withdraw thyself into that tabernacle.” “The fathers of the Church,” says Townsend,[5] “are unanimous on all those points which peculiarly characterise true Christianity. They assert the divinity, the incarnation, and the atonement of Christ; and thus bear their decisive testimony against the modern reasoners on these points. They are unanimous in asserting that the primitive Churches were governed by an order of men, who possessed authority over others who had been set apart for preaching and administering the Sacraments: and certain privileges and powers were committed to that higher order which were withheld from the second and third. The reception of the canon of Scripture, the proofs of its authenticity and genuineness, rest upon the authority of the fathers; and there are customs of universal observance, which are not in express terms commanded in Scripture, and which rest upon the same foundation. We are justified, therefore, on these and on many other accounts, in maintaining the utmost veneration for their unanimous authority, which has never in any one instance clashed with Scripture, which will preserve in its purity every Church which is directed by them, and check or extinguish every innovation which encourages error in doctrine, or licentiousness in discipline.” “He that hath willingly subscribed to the word of God,” says Bishop Hall,[6] attested in the everlasting Scriptures; to all the primitive creeds; to the four general councils; to the common judgment of the fathers, for six hundred years after Christ, (_which we, of our reformation, religiously profess to do_;) this man may possibly err in trifles, but he cannot be an heretic.” This is the doctrine of common sense not less than of the Church. It was the departure from it which constituted the necessity of the English Reformation. It is the departure from it which constitutes the danger of our day. It is in the return to it, in standing in the ways, and asking for “the old paths,” that our safety and our hope are to be found. It is a blessed omen for our times, that, through the zealous devotion of Pusey and Keble and Newman, the ancient documents will soon be brought, in their translations of the Fathers, within the common reach.

Of kindred interest, and of scarcely inferior importance, is the study of THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. For a time, the Church, drunk with too much prosperity, had wandered and grown wanton. For a time, God left her to eat of the fruit of her own ways, and be filled with her own devices. But,

“His own possession and his lot
He will not quite forsake.”

The wrath of man he makes to praise him. The remainder of it he restrains. When the time came that he would have mercy upon Sion, men were not wanting to the work, with holy hearts, and giant hands, and tongues of fire. They took their stand upon the pure word of God. They appealed to the consenting voice of all Christian antiquity. They toiled. They prayed. They bled. They burned. They persevered. They triumphed. The Church, deformed before, was now reformed. She returned to her old principles, and to her “first love.” “We look,” says Joseph Mede,[7] “after the form, rites, and discipline of antiquity; and endeavour to bring our own as near as we can to that pattern.” “If I mistake not greatly,” says Casaubon, writing to Salmasius,[8] “the soundest part of all the reformation is in England; for there, with the study of the scripture, there is the most regard to the study of antiquity.”

But I must check myself. I may not enter now upon this rich and tempting field. The time would fail me to tell of Wickliff, and Cranmer, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Taylor, and Rogers, and the glorious host of witnesses for God, that “loved not their life unto the death.”

“Methinks that I could trip o’er heaviest soil
Light as a buoyant bark from wave to wave,
Were mine the trusty staff that JEWEL gave
To youthful HOOKER in familiar style
The gift exalting, and with playful smile.[9]
For thus equipped, and bearing on his head
The donor’s farewell blessing, can he dread
Tempest, or length of way, or weight of toil?
More sweet than odours caught by him who sails
Near spicy shores of Araby the blest;
A thousand times more exquisitely sweet
The freight of holy feeling which we meet
In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales
From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest.

Holy and heavenly spirits as they are
Spotless in life, and eloquent as wise,
With what entire affection do they prize
Their new-born[10] Church! Labouring with earnest care
To baffle all that may her strength impair;
That Church--the unperverted Gospel’s seat;
In their afflictions a divine retreat;
Source of their liveliest hope, and tenderest prayer!
The truth exploring with an equal mind,
In doctrine and communion they have sought
Firmly between the two extremes to steer;
But theirs the wise man’s ordinary lot,
To trace right courses for the stubborn blind,
And prophesy to ears that will not hear.--

WORDSWORTH, _Ecclesiastical Sketches_.

Let us hope that to this most fruitful field of truth, and purity and piety, and charity, Mr. Blunt’s delightful “Sketch” may turn many an eager eye and many a vigorous foot. And for ourselves, dear brother, when the cares and disappointments and disquietudes of life disturb or weary us, and we are tempted to fall back, or turn aside, or falter, on the high, “right onward” course of duty, next to the Author of our faith, and the bright cloud of prophets and apostles who stand nearest to his throne, let us direct our eyes to the illustrious fathers of the English Reformation. “We shall find there,” I cite again the eloquent and admirable Rose,[11] “bright examples of saints and martyrs--of men of whom the world was not worthy--who have done all and suffered all, that men could do and could suffer, for that one blessed cause, and in so doing and so suffering have found an elevation, a peace and a joy which nothing could give but the sense of God’s presence, and the influence of God’s Spirit, blessing his own servants in doing his own work. So warned, and so cheered, by the voice of Scripture and the comment of history, we shall betake us each to our humble path with a clearer conviction of duty, a stronger sense of the danger and the guilt of neglecting it, a firmer hope of a blessing, a more cheerful and animating view of the prospect before us.”

And now, dear brother,--who rejoicest in a name, than which the earth has never known a nobler, the name of “the judicious Hooker,”--in the hope that, for the love you bear me, you will pardon this strange rambling, and with the prayer, that God may bless you many years with health and strength, to serve his glorious Church, with the rich gifts which he has given you--or, failing these, may comfort and sustain your heart with Milton’s noble sentiment,

“They also serve who only stand and wait,”--

believe me, with sincere affection, your faithful friend and brother in the Church and Gospel of our common Lord.

G. W. DOANE.

_The Rev._ HERMAN HOOKER,
_Editor of the Library of Christian Knowledge_.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

British and Anglo-Saxon Churches.--Intercourse with
Rome.--Early Corruptions Page 1

CHAPTER II.

Divisions amongst Ecclesiastics.--The regular and secular
Clergy.--The Pope favours the former.--Exemptions from
Episcopal Jurisdiction.--Habits of the Friars 43

CHAPTER III.

Progress of Grievances under the Norman Princes.--Papal
Interference.--Legates.--Collision of Roman and English
Forms of Law--Inconveniences attending it 47

CHAPTER IV.

Monasteries.--Their Usurpation of the Rights of the
Clergy.--Impropriations.--Evils of the System 60

CHAPTER V.

Early Reformers.--Waldenses.--Wickliffe.--Lollards 75

CHAPTER VI.

Luther.--Erasmus.--Sir T. More.--New Translation of the
Bible.--Demand for it 96

CHAPTER VII.

Cranmer.--The Divorce.--The Supremacy 111

CHAPTER VIII.

Dissolution of the Abbeys.--Church Property.--Immediate
Consequences of the Dissolution 135

CHAPTER IX.

Cromwell.--Gardiner.--Bonner.--The Act of the Six
Articles.--Sermons of those Days.--Proposed Disposal
of Ecclesiastical Property.--Articles of 1536.--The
Bible in Churches.--Bishops’ Book,--King’s Book 165

CHAPTER X.

Edward VI.--Advance of the Reformation.--Erasmus’s
Paraphrase.--Homilies.--Cranmer’s Catechism.--Office
of Communion.--Book of Common-Prayer.--Time of Service,
and Length.--Primer.--Articles of 1553.--Moderation of
the English Reformers 196

CHAPTER XI.

Hooper.--Puritans.--Expectations of the Roman
Catholic.--Edward’s Death.--Lady Jane Grey 235

CHAPTER XII.

Mary.--Suppression of the Reformation.--Persecution of
the Reformers.--Fox’s Acts and Monuments 252

CHAPTER XIII.

Elizabeth.--Her Accession.--Her Caution.--Reformation
again triumphant.--Return of the
Exiles.--Jewel.--Injunctions of Elizabeth compared
with those of Edward.--Progress of the Puritans.--The
Reformation not completed.--Conclusion 276

A SKETCH

OF THE

REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.