, The Anglican Reformation: 0^1 or M\ The Church of ii^ngland m V but Half Reformed. /f ^.Ov I'o 1954 ^BX 8913 .A3 1843 The Anglican reformation: oi The Church of England but ' /^ i I niONjaiaiHdwvdJ i INnOWOlOHd . ,^5-3 .NJ THE NOV 23 1927 'mi ANGLICAN EEFORMATION: OK THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND BUT HALF EEFORMED ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE EDINBURGH PRESBYTERIAN REVIEW JANUARY, 1813. PHILADELPHIA : PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. THE ANGLICAN EEFORMATION The origin of Puritan nonconformity,* its ample warrant, and complete justification, will be found in the charactei and proceedings of Queen Elizabeth, the principles on which the Anglican Church was at first based, and the means by which it was finally established. Elizabeth was one of those persons whose character it is difficult to portray, because it consisted of elements appa- rently irreconcilable. She possessed the peculiar character- istics of both sexes in almost equal proportions. She had all the masculine energy and enlarged capacity of a strong- minded man, with all the caprice, vanity, and obstinacy of a weak-minded woman ; while the circumstances in which .she was placed had a direct tendency to develope and mature all the elements of her character. She was suspicious by nature, by education, and by necessity, and despotic by temperament, by habit, and by policy. Thoroughly and intensely selfish, she made all the means within her reach minister to her own interests ; utterly insensible to the miseries she might occasion to the instruments of her will,. or the objects of her policy. f Impatient of contradiction, * Puritans and nonconfornnists were, at first, the common titles of those who were subsequently called Presbyterians, while Brownites, sectaries, and separatists, were the ordinary appella- tions of those who are now called Independents. See Pierce's Vindication of the Dissenters, pp. 147, 189, 205, 206, 213, 215, 223. Hanbury's Eccl. Memorials of Independents, i. 3, 5, et passim. f "My good old mistress," says Sir Francis Bacon to King James, in 1612, "was wont to call me her watch candle, because it pleased her to say I did continually burn; and yet she suffered me to waste almost to nothing." (Wordsworth Eccl. Biog. iv. 3 7 4 THE ANGLICAN REFOR^IATION. not less from the strong than the weak points of her char- acter, she quelled, with equal imperiousness, all opposition to her will, and crushed a refractory spirit in prelates, par- liaments, and privy council, in Puritans, Papists, anG populace, with as iron a rigour as was ever displayed by Henry VIII. It was only by the favourable circumstances in which she was placed, and by the dexterity with which she regu- lated her personal deportment, as well as her general policy, tiiat such a character, which could conciliate no love, enkindle no gratitude, and excite no sympathy, could inspire those feelings of national homage of which we know she was the object. Her life, to many of her Protestant subjects, appeared the only barrier against the return of Popery and persecution ; and therefore, for their own pro- tection, they not only tolerated the strong measures of her government, but admired her prudence, and promoted her plans. Parsimonious to an extreme in granting salaries or pensions to her servants from the royal treasures, she was munificent in rewarding, if not her ministers, at least her minions, by donations from the estates of the Church ; and thus she secured the applause of those — and they are always a numerous party — who look more to the value of the gift, than the legitimacy of the source whence it is drawn. Theatrical, yet imposing, in her carriage ; mag- nificent, though coarse in her tastes; thoroughly English in her feelings, and successful in her enterprises, she won and retained the admiration of those (always the mass in every nation) who are impressed only through their senses, judge merely by results, and admire power and splendour, without looking too curiously into the source whence the one is derived, or the objects to which the other is directed. It was part of her policy not to demand taxes from her parliaments, lest they might attempt to canvass her measures, and control her proceedings ;* while from the very same policy she directed the most judicious 70, n.) She kept Sir Francis Walsingham at Paris, because she found him serviceable to her purposes, till his health was com- pletely shattered, and his fortune utterly impoverished ; nor could all his petitions and representations to herself and her council, obtain either an accession to his income, a respite to his labours, or a recall from his embassy. See Sirype's Annals, lii. pp. 339, 340. * Bishop Short's Sketch of the History of the Church of Eng- land. 2d edit. Sect. 429, 467. 8 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. O efforts to enlarge the wealth and prosperity of the kingdom ; and all this had, of course, the very strongest tendency to increase her general popularity. It must have been from sources such as these that so much of admiration was lavished upon one who never uttered one amiable sentiment, and never performed one generous deed. It is not less difficult to estimate Elizabeth's religious character, than to do justice to her personal and political life. During her sister's reign, she regularly attended con- fession and mass, and conformed to all the ritual observ- ances of Popery.* Nor was this merely from policy, or from a desire to escape persecution from that ferocious bigot, who was well known to cherish no sisterly regard towards her ; for after her accession to the throne, she continued to pray to the Virgin Mary, and, as we shall see, maintained many of the peculiar doctrines of Roman- ism. She believed in the real presence, which, as then understood, was synonymous with transubstantiation,f publicly censured a preacher, who preached against it in her presence, and praised another who preached in its favour. The people, in the sudden ebullition of their joy, at what they conceived the downfall of Romanism, pulled down the rood lofts, broke in pieces altars and images and burnt up the pictures and crucifixes, which, in the days of their ignorance, they had worshipped.:]: Elizabeth, however, indignant at such sacrilege, ordered these appen- dages of idolatry to be restored ; and it was only after the most strenuous exertions of her prelates and counsellors, she could be induced to yield to their removal. § But » Strype's Annals, i. 2. ' f Ibid. 2, 3. + Ibid. 260-2. § Jbid. 237, 241. There is a singular letter from Jewell tc Peter Martyr. (Burnet's Hist. Ref. Records, Bk. vi. No, 60,) dated 4th Feb. 1560, beginning, "0 my father, what shall I write thee?" in which he says, "That controversy about crosses (in Churches) is now hot amotigst us. You can scarcely believe in so silly a matter, how men, who seemed rational, play the fool. Of these the only one you know is Cox. To-morrow a disputation is appointed to take place upon this matter. Some members of par- liament are chosen arbitrators. The disputants are. in favour of crosses, the Archbishop of Canterbury, (Parker) and Cox; against them Grindal (Bishop of London) and myself. The result lies at the mercy of our judges. However, I laugh when I think with what, and how grave and solid arguments they shall defend their paltry crosses. I shall write you the result, however it may go. At present the cause is in dependence. However, so far as I can divine, this is the last letter you shall receive from me as a bishop, 1* 9 THE ANGLICAN REFOR3IATION. although she gave a reluctant assent to have them removed from the churches, she still retained a crucifix, with tapers burning before it, upon the altar in her own private chapel. Against this open idolatry, all her prelates, not even Cox excepted, remonstrated in a style of very unusual vehe- mence ; and in terms the most obsequious, yet firm, they begged leave to decline officiating in her majesty's chapel until the abomination was removed. For the moment she seems to have given way to the storm. But she soon recovered her obstinate determination in favour of her cru- cifix and lighted tapers, — restored them to their former plage upon the altar,* and there they remained at least as late as 1572. f Nor were these badges of idolatry retained merely as ornaments. Strype informs us distinctly, that " she and her nobles used to give honour to them.":{: Nor could it be any ambiguous manifestation of popery and idolatry, which could extract from Cox that long and urgent declinature to officiate in her chapel, in which he says, " I most humbly sue unto your godly zeal, prostrate and with wet eyes, that ye will vouchsafe to peruse the considera- tions which move me, that I dare not minister in your grace's chapel, the lights and cross remaining.§ But although Elizabeth was thus obstinate in favour of these " dregs of Popery," and " relics of the Amorities," as Jewell termed them, she had not even the semblance of per- sonal religion. Those members of the Church of England who are favourable to Protestantism, and yet feel that their Church is identified with the Church of Elizabeth, may, as a matter of course, be expected to portray her both as Pro- for the matter is come to that pass, that we must either take back those crosses of silver and pewter, which we have broken, or resipjn our bishopricks." * In 1570. Sirype's Parker, ii. 35, 36. ■\ Strype, speaking of the year 1565, says, "The queen still, to this year, kept the crucifix in her chapel." Annals, i. ii. 198. Again, "I find the queen's chapel stood m sfatii quo seven years after." Ibid. 200. Cartwright also mentions the fact in his "Ad- monition to Parliament," published in 1570. Parker exerted !iim- self strenuously, but in vain, against this nuisance. Strype's Parker, i. 92. The encouragement which this attachment of the queen to some of the grossest errors of their system gave the papists, may be inferred from the fact, that a popish priest, in 1564, dedicated to her a work in defence of the crucifix being retained and worshipped as before. See Strype's An. i. 260-2. i Strype's An. i. 259, 260. § Strype's Aa. i. 360, and Ap. Rec. No. 22. 10 THE AJfGLICAN REFOKMATION. 7 testant and pious ; and this has been done to an extent which, in our mind, has rendered every history of Eliza- beth, by members of the Anglican Church, altogether unworthy of credit, except simply when they state facts, and give their authority for them. Even Strype, so favour- ably distinguished for veracity and candour, exerts himself to write a panegyric on Elizabeth, although the facts which he is too honest to conceal, jar oddly enough with his praises ; and although also, occasional expressions drop unguardedly from his pen, which show how dissatisfied he was with the personal character and religion of that queen. "And, indeed," he says, speaking of her religious char- acter at her accession, " what to think of the queen at this time as to her religion, one might hesitate somewhat." * She seldom or never attended Church except during Lent, (which she observed, and compelled others to observe, with all the formality of Rome,) when the best pulpit orators from all parts of England were summoned up to preach before her.f She, indeed, held the preaching of the gospel not only in contempt, but in something bordering upon de- testation, and wished that all her subjects should follow her own example in absenting themselves from hearing sermons. While nine parishes out of every ten throughout the king- dom were destitute of a preaching ministry, she commanded Grindal, in 1576, to diminish still further the number of preachers, declaring that three or four were sufficient for a whole county — that, preaching did more harm than good, and that, consequently, " it was good for the Church to have few preachers.":]: And because he would not obey, sup- press " the prophesyings," and lessen the number of preach- ers, she suspended him from his functions, sequestered his revenues, and confined him a prisoner to his own house, and it was with some difficulty she was restrained from proceeding further against him. Grindal's firmness, how- ever, under God, saved England ; for had he yielded to her anti-christian tyranny, it is easy to perceive what the result must have been upon the moral and spiritual condition of the kingdom. Nor were her morals more eminent than her piety. With- out giving more attention than they deserve to the scandal- ous revelations of Lingard, or to the rumours which have * Annals, i. 2. -j- Strype's Parker, i. 40' ^ Strype's Grindal, pp. 328, 329, and Appendix B. ii. No. d which we recommend to our readers to read throughout. 11 8 THE ANGLICAN RKFORMATION. descended to our own time in secret memoirs, in MSS., and by traditions, it is impossible to question that the " virgin queen" hardly deserved the epithet of which she was so ambitious.* She indulged freely in the pleasures of the table. During her annual " progresses," her prelates and nobles, aware of her taste for magnificent entertainments, rivalled one another in ministering to her gratification. After her return from these more than oriental fetes, she was generally indisposed, nature exacting her usual tribute, not less from the queen, than from more plebeian gour- mands.t She swore most profanely, not only in her con- versation, but also in her letters, and that not only to her profane men, but even to her prelates. | As Elizabeth did not often attend church, she had the more time to desecrate the Sabbath; and while the Puritans were persecuted for not honouring saints' days, she, her nobles and her prelates, profaned the day of the Lord. In one of her " progresses," in 1575, she spent three weeks at » Leicester, in a private letter to Walsingham, while ambassa- dor at Pans, speaking of a mysterious iUness, by which she was suddenly seized, says, "That, indeed, she had been troubled with a spice or show of the mother^ And although he says that, " in- deed, it was not so," he was too good a courtier, as well as too personally implicated, to be a trustworthy witness. Strype's An. ii!. 319. f Thus, in 1571, after her return from one of these " progresses," "she was taken suddenly sick at her stomach, and as suddenly relieved by a vomit." Strype's An. iii. 175." \ Sir John Harrington, giving a description of an interview he bad with her in 1601, a year or two before her death, says, "She swears much at those that cause her griefs in such wise, to the no small discomfiture of all about her." Nugae Antiquae., i. 319. We owe the following anecdote to the same amusing gossip. Cux of Ely having refused to alienate some of the best houses and manors of his see to some of her courtiers, notwithstanding of a personal command from the queen, received from the indignant Elizabeth the following characteristic epistle. "Proud prelate, you know what you were before I made you what you are ; if you do not immediately comply with my request, by G— d, I will un- frock you. Elizabeth." However ludicrous to us, such a man- date must have been anything but laughable to the poor bishop of Ely. With a pertinacity, however, which would have been sub- lime, had it been displayed in a better cause. Cox preserved to the last the revenues of his see. After his death, however, Eliza- beth was revenged. She kept the diocese vacant for eighteen years, (as she kept Oxford for twenty-two years,) and before a succession was appointed, she stripped it so bare, that from hav- ing beer, ^ne of the richest, it is now one of the poorest dioceses 'n England. 12 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 9 ^enilworth, one of the seats of her favourite, the Earl of Leicester. A contemporary chronicler gives the following account of the manner in which two of the Sabbaths spent ihere were desecrated. In the forenoon she went to the parish church. But "the afternoon" was spent "in excel- lent music of sundry sweet instruments, and in dancing of lords and ladies, and other worshipful degrees, with lively agility and commendable grace. At night, late after a warn- ing or two," such as Jupiter's respects to the queen and other heathen masques and mummeries, there " were blazes of burning darts flying to and fro, beams of stars, coruscant streams, and hail of fiery sparks, lightning of wild-fire, in water and land, flight and shot of thunder-bolts — all with continuance, terror and vehemence, as though the heavens thundered, the water scourged, and the earth shook. This lasted till after midnight." Next Sabbath the same scene was repeated with sundry alterations. But, in addition, " this, by the kalendar," being " St. Kenelme's day," the genius or tutelary god of the place, there " was a solemn country bridal, with running at quintal, in honour of this Kenilworth Castle, and of God and St. Kenelme !"* When we bear in mind the manner in which the Sabbath has been desecrated in England down from the Reformation, by princes, peers, and prelates, by the " Book of Sports," by acts of parliament and convocation, and that the only friends * Apud Strype's An. ii. i. 584, 585. It may be said in palliation of Elizabeth's desecration of the Sabbath, tliat she only followed the exannple set before her by the primate of all England. Parker having finished a princely dining hall in his palace at Canterbury, in 1565, gave several magnificent entertainments there. "The first," says his biographer, " was at Whitsuntide, and lasted three days, that is, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday." ..." His second feast was on Trinity Sunday, following. . . . The hall was set forth with much plate of silver and gold, adorned with rich tapes- try of Flanders. . . . There were dainties of all sorts, both meats and drinks, and in jrreat plent}', and all things served in excellent order by none but the archbishop's servants." Strype's Parker, i. 376 — 380. It was Parker's ambition upon these occasions to rival the fetes given by his predecessor Warham to the Emperor Charles V. and Henry VIII., and that such important matters might not be lost to posterity, he became their historian himself. Ibid. ii. 296. 297. Even when he retired to his smallest country residence, Parker's domestic establishment consisted of about a hundred retainers. Ibid. i. 277. Parker, however, was complete- ly outshone by Whitgil>, who rivalled Wolsey himself. See his Life by "Sir George Paule, comptroller of his Grace's household," in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, iv. 387 — 389. B 13 10 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. of Sabbath observance have been the persecuted Puritans, the wonder is, not that it should be so grievously desecrated, but that any veneration whatever should continue to be paia to it. Among the manifold forms in which the queen's attach- ment to the " relics of Popery" displayed itself, few were so offensive to the clergy as her countenance of clerical celi- bacy and her opposition to the marriage of the priesthood. In her first parliament, an attempt was made to pass an act to legalize the marriage of the clergy, as had been done in the reign of her brother, but she would not permit it.* Various efforts were made by Cecil, Parker (who was married himself) and others, to induce her, at subsequent periods, to yield ; but their attempts only exasperated the vestal queen. In 1561, she issued an injunction forbidding married clergymen from living with their wives within the precincts of colleges or cathedral closes, and but lor the importunity of Cecil, she would have absolutely forbidden the marriage of the clergy. When Parker shortly after- wards waited upon her, she scolded him with much " bitter- ness," and spoke in such terms not only against clerical matrimony, but the whole constitution of the Church of England, and threw out such hints of what it was her in- tention to do, to remedy the evils she complained of, that, as he wrote to Cecil, he expected nothing short of an abso- lute order to restore things to the condition in which they stood in the reign of her sister, or, at all events, that she would restore so much of popery that he could not conform to the Church. j When she cooled, however, and saw that Protestantism was the only tenure by which she held her crown, she relented so far as not to compel a return to popery, but she issued orders imposing conditions upon the marriage of the priesthood, which he must have been not only uxorious indeed, but degraded in taste and spirit, who could comply with.lj: Never could she be got to give any thing more than a tacit connivance to clerical matrimony, while ever and anon she poured her contempt upon both the married clergy and their wives. That amusing gossip. Sir John Harrington, gives the following ludicrous instance of her treatment even of the primate's lady. Parker had given Elizabeth one of his sumptuous banquets at Lambeth. * Strype's An. i. 118. f Strv'pe's Parker, i. 213—217. i See the injunctions in Bishop Sparrow's Collections, 65, or in Dr. Cardwell's Documentary Annals of the Church of England, i. No 43. pp. 178—209. 14 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 11 As the queen was retiring, she thus publicly addressed Mrs. Parker : " Madam" — (the usual title of married ladies) — -' Madam I may not call you, Mistress," (the ordinary title of unmarried ladies) "1 am loath to call you, but, however, I thank you for your good cheer." In 1594, she banished Bishop Fletcher, lately translated from Worcester to London, from her court, for having married " a fine lady," (sister to Sir George Gifford, one of her gentlemen pensioners,) which she said " was a very indecent act for an elderly clergyman." Nor did her wrath end here. She commanded Whifgift to suspend him, and it was with con- siflcrable exertions on the part of Cecil that at the end of six months the suspension was removed. Still she would not suffer him for a twelvemonth afterward to appear in her presence. The poor court chaplain, who had hitherto basked in the sunshine of her smiles, pined away under her frowns, and died shortly afterwards of a broken heart, — a warning to all " elderly clergymen" not to be guilty of such " indecent acts" in future.* We shall show in the sequel that if Elizabeth had had any regard to the morals of the clergy, (which she had not,) she ought rather to have pass- ed a law compelling them to marry, nor would it have mili- tated agauist good morals had she set them the example. Such having been Elizabeth's feelings against Protestant- ism and in favour of Popery, it must be matter of great sur- prise to ordinary readers that she should ever have become a Protestant at all. And, indeed, we are thoroughly per- suaded that if she had not been necessitated, both by her personal and political position, to promote the reformed in- terest, she would have remained herself, and kept the king- dom too, in communion with the Church of Rome. Religion ^vith Elizabeth was, all her life, a mere political engine. While she persecuted in her own kingdom all who opposed her ecclesiastical views, she aided by counsels, men, and money, the Protestants of Scotland, France, Geneva, and the Netherlands, who opposed the ecclesiastical supremacy of their civil governors. The court of Rome had declared her father's marriage with her mother invalid, and herself consequently illegitimate, and incapable of inheriting the throne of England. On her accession, she despatched a notification of that event to Rome, and resolved in the mean- while to do nothing in favour of the Reformation, lest she might alienate the Vatican. The pontiff, however, ignorant * See the whole account in Strype's Whitgift, ii. 215 — 218. 15 12 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. equally of his own impotency, and of the imperiousness of her whom he addressed, sent her back a haughty and arro- gant answer, declared her illegitimate, commanded her to abandon the throne she had usurped, and resign herself en- tirely to the will of the holy see of which England was but a fief. Such language Elizabeth could little brook even from the assumed vicar of Christ. Had the energetic but wily and insinuating Sixtus V. then occupied the chair of Peter, from his avowed regard for the congenial character of Eliza- beth, and from other politic considerations, the answer would assuredly have been different, and the result would as assu- redly have been different also. Or had Elizabeth been a weak-minded Papist, as she was a strong-minded one, she might have been terrified into compliance, and Mary of Scot- land would have ascended the throne of England in her own person instead of that of her son. But God made the wrath of men to praise him, and human infirmities and folly to magnify his own wisdom and might. Elizabeth's courage could as little falter at the spiritual thunders of the Vatican as at the more formidable artillery of the Armada of Spain. She therefore at once determined to declare open war with the Papacy, and to construct the Church of England after a model which, without banishing Popery in the splendour of its ornaments, the magnificence of its ritual, the mysticism of its sacraments, or the scholasticism of its dogmas, should be found more subservient to her own will, and more con- ducive to her personal aggrandizement, than if it held of Rome. She resolved to unite the po/itijicale with the regale in her own person, to incorporate the triple-storied tiara with the imperial diadem, and grasp the keys of Peter with the same hand which wielded the sword of Alfred. In one word, she determined to become to the Church of England what the Pope was to the Church of Rome ; and she carried her determination into execution. Elizabeth left neither her prelates nor her privy council at any loss to divine her intentions. She told Parker at the interview, at which, as already narrated, she had denounced the marriage of the clergy, that she meant to issue out in- junctions in favour of Popery.* Had she been so disposed, the act of supremacy, to which we shall immediately allude, placed the entire constitutional power so to do in her hands. Political considerations, however, dissuaded her from seek- ing reconciliation with Rome. She valued her ecclesiastical * Strype's Parker, i. 217, 218. 16 TTTE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 13 supremacy at the very least as highly as her civil auto- cracy ; and as a reconciliation with Rome could be pur- chased only by the surrender of the former, and most prob- ably also of the latter, Elizabeth remained satisfied with the power to render the national religion Popish in every thing but a submission to the universal supremacy of the Pope. Parker, whose conscience was sufficiently elastic to enable him to remain in England during the reign of Mary, and whose nerves were not easily shaken, was in a " horror" at the determined manner in which she told him she was resolved to restore Popery ; and he anticipated nothing else than that he should be one of the first victims of a new Popish persecution.* Even Cox, who, next to Cheney of Gloucester, was the most papistical of Elizabeth's first bishops, was so well aware of her inclinations to restore more oi" Popery than even he desired, tha one of the argu- ments which he employed to urge Parker to a more vigor- ous persecution of the Puritans, was an apprehension lest the opposition they gave to her ecclesiastical arrangements should provoke her to a total abandonment of Protestantism, f Indeed, so well established is this point by the clearest his- toric evidence, that no man acquainted with the facts of the case now doubts it, except, perhaps, some Anglican evan- g(?licals, who are retained in the bosom of the Church of England through" a delusive idea that it had really been reformed by Elizabeth. The High Church party are per- fectly aware that Elizabeth did prevent the reformation of the Church of England. "This arbitrary monarch," says one of that party, " had a tendency towards Rome almost in every thing but the doctrine of the papal supremacy.- To the real presence she was understood to have no objec- tion ; the celibacy of the clergy she decidedly approved ; the gorgeous rites of the ancient form of worship she ad- mired, and in her own chapel retained."! The Puseyites gratefully acknowledge the service Elizabeth rendered to their cause. " Queen Elizabeth," says one of that school, *' with her prejudices in favour of the old religion, was * Strype's Parker, Ap. Records, No. 17. j- Ibid. i. 456. i Quarterly Review for June 1827, p. 31. See even the low- church Burnet, the indiscriminate panegyrist of Elizabeth's mea- sures, Hist. Ref. ed. 1839, li. 582-3. Dr. Short, the present bishop of Sudor and Man, makes the same confession, Sketch of the Hist, of the Church of England, 2d ed. 313, et passim. And so, in short, as we have said, do all historians, except some evangelicals, to whose position it is essential to overlook the fact. b2 2 17 14 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATIO!^. doubtless an instrument in the hand of God for stopping th^ progress of the Reformation." * Indeed, the only objec- tions that party have to Elizabeth's measures is, that "she kept the supremacy to herself instead of leaving it in the hands of the clergy. Still with all her faults, and they are sufficiently numer- ous and aggravated, Elizabeth was a splendid monarch, and we can easily account for the admiration in which her memory is still held in England. To view her to advan- tage, or perhaps even to do her justice, we must forget her sex, overlook her religious opinions, bear in mind the un- settled form of the constitution, and judge her by the max- ims of her own age. That assuredly could be no ordinary personage who could task the consummate sagacity and finished tact of Cecil, fix the volatile passions of Leicester, bend the stubborn spirit of Parker, outmancBuvre the Mla- chiavellian policy of Montalto, and humble the genius, chivalry, and resources of Spain. In courage equal to Semiramis, in accomplishments to Zenobia, in policy and energy to Catherine, she possessed a combination of talents to which none of them could lay claim. Forget for the moment her creed, overlook her treatment of parliament and the Puritans, place yourself in her own age, and view her merely as a monarch, and even prejudice must acknow- ledge that she was the most magnificent sovereign that ever occupied the English throne. The various steps by which the Church of England was brought to assume its present form, have been, as might well be expected, very keenly canvassed. We shall en- able the reader, by a simple induction of facts, to form his own opinion both of the Church itself, and of the various means by which it was primarily established, and made to assume its present form. The first act of Elizabeth's first parliament restored to the crown the supremacy in matters spiritual which was possessed by Henry VIII. and Edward VI., but which Mary had resigned to the Pope. By this act, " Such jurisdictions, privileges, superiorities and pr^-emi- nences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any spiritual or ecclesiastical power or authority hath heretofore been, or may lawfully be exercised or used for the visitation of the ecclesiastical state and persons, and for reformation, order and correction of the same, and of all manner of • British Critic for October 1842, p. 333. See also p. 330—1. 18 THE ANGLICAN REFOKMATION. 15 3rrors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts and enormities, shall for ever, by the authority of the present parliament, be united and annexed to the imperial crown of the realm." By a clause in the act of uniformity, it was enacted, " 'i'hat the Queen's Majesty, by advice of her ecclesiastical commissioners, may ordain and publish such ceremonies or rit(is as may be most lor the advancement of God's glory, and tiic edifying of the church." So highly did Elizabeth esteem the authority thus conferred upon her, that she told Parker she would never have consented to establish the Protestant religion at all, but for the power with which she was thus invested to change it according to her own will. Nor let it be forgotten that the present sovereign Victoria has, at this moment, the very sfime extent of power which the act of supremacy conferred upon Elizabeth. In order to enable Elizabeth, and all her successors, to exercise this most exorbitant power, by a clause in the act of supremacy she v/as empowered to delegate her authority to any persons, being natural born subjects, whether lay or clerical, who, as commissioners from, and for the crown, were empowered to " visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, con- tempts and enormities whatsoever, Vrhich, by any manner of spiritual or ecclesiastical power, authority or jurisdiction, can or may lawiully be reformed, ordered, redressed, cor- rected, restrained or amended." *' Nothing," as a High-Church historian has well observ- ed, " can be more comprehensive than the terms of this clause. The whole compass of Church discipline seems (and not only seems, but in reality was) transferred upon the crown." * While all parties, except the most decided Erastians, low-churchmen, and some also of the Evangeli- cal body, have united in condemning, in the strongest terms, the spiritual powers thus conferred upon the crown, their indignation has been specially directed against that clause by which the whole ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Church (»l England may be exercised by lay commissioners, acting by a warrant under the crown. Had the crown been restricted to employ only ecclesiastics in ecclesiastical causes, the evil would be practically redressed. But as the crown not only possessed, but exercised the power to place this jurisdiction in the hands of laymen, who, in vir- • Collier's Ecclesiastical History, Barham's edition, vi. 224. 19 16 THE A^GLICAX Kr.FOT?3IATIO?r. tue of their commission, were empowered to examine cen- sure, suspend, and even depose, not only the inferior clergy, but even the prelates and the primat£?s, and did too, in manifold instances, execute their -commission, it were strange, indeed, if any man who can distinguish the Church from the world, and things spiritual from things civil, could but deplore and condemn this foul invasion of the privileges of Christ's kingdom. Such was the loundation of the high commission court, and of the star chamber, which in a subsequent age proved so disastrous, not only to the liberties and the lives of the subject, but hIso to the stability of the altar and the throne. The authority of these courts v/as so undefined, their powers so despotic, that they could be perpetuated only by the destruction of all liberty, both civil and religious. '' Whoever," says a Romanist historian of high name, " will compare the powers given to this tribunal, (the high commission court,) with those of the inquisition which Philip the Second endeavoured to establish in the Low Countries, will find that the chief difference between the two courts consisted in their names." * And all that a learned and zealous advocate of the Church of England can say in her defence is, that " Dr. Lingard ought to have added, that though such commis- sions were not unknown in the time of Edward VI., the person who first brought into England the model attempted in the Low Countries was Queen Maiy ; . . . and that the same system was continued in the reign of Elizabeth, not bef-ause it v/as congenial with the spirit of Protestantism, but because the temper of the times had been trained and hardened in the sc-hool of Popery. "| As if it were not admitted, even by this apologist himself, that the Chunh of England had the precedency of Philip in the institution of a court of inquisition nnder Edward, as if any man but jin out-and-out apologist of the Church of England would identify' the actions of PJIizabefh v/ith the genuine manifes- tations of "the spirit of Protestantism," and as if, besides, fhe high commission court and the star chamber, as Dr. Card well's words would insinuate, had terminated with the reign of Elizabeth, or had been abolished by the Church of England, when he very well knows the horroi^s these courts * Lingard^s History of England, v. 316. f Dr. Cardweirs Documentary Anuais of the Church of England, i. 223. 20 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. It perpetrated in subsequent reigns, and. knows, too, that it was llie rising power of the Puritans that demolished these infernal courts, which an increasing party in the Church of England, who fairly represent her genius, will ere long restore, if the old Puritan spirit do not prevent such a na- tional calamity. Ample as the spiritual and ecclesiastical powers thus conferred upon Elizabeth were, she was not satisfied, until, by a clause in the act of supremacy, all persons hohhng public office, civil, juridical, municipal, military or eccle- siastical, were required to take an oath in recognition of the supremacy royal, binding themselves to defend the same, under pain of being deprived of their offices, and of being declared incapable of further employment. This oath, by the 36th canon, continues to be taken by all eccle- siastics down to this day. Thus, by one disastrous stroke, the liberties of the Church of England were cloven down, and laid prostrate in the dust. All ecclesiastical jurisdiction, all spiritual power, were lodged in the crown, without respect to the sex, creed, or character of the party, who, for the time, might happen to wear it. The prelates and pastors of that Church thus became, even in the discharge of their most sacred func- tions, the mere vicars and delegates of the supreme civil magistrate. Not one rite, even the most trivial, can they alter, not one canon, however necessary, can they pass, not one error, however gross, can they reform, not one omission, even the most important, can they supply. The civil magistrate enacts the creed they are bound to profess and inculcate, frames the prayers which they must offer at the throne of God, prescribes in number and form the sa- craments they must administer, arranges the rites and vest- ments they must use, down to the colour, shape, and stuff of a cap or a tunicle, and takes discipline altogether out of thf;ir hand. The parish priest has no authority to exclude the most profligate sinner from communion ; the lordliest prelate and primate cannot excommunicate the most aoan- doned sinner, or suspend the most immoral ecclesiastic from his functions; and should either the priest or the prelate attempt to exercise the discipline prescribed by the Lord Jesus in his house, he will speedily be made to under- stand, by the terrors of a prcEmitnire^ or the experience of a prison, that he is not appointed in the Church of England to administer the laws of Christ, but the statutes of the im 2* 21 18 THE ANGLICAN 11EFOK3IATION. " -^ penal parliament, or the injunctions of the crown.* iN'ever was there so autocratical a despotism placed in the hands of a human being, as, by the Constitution of the Church of England, is reposed in the sovereign — never, on earth, was there so fettered and enthralled a community as the southern establishment. The muftis and other ecclesiasti- cal functionaries (so to term them) have an indefinite au- thority by the constitution of Turkey to resist the jurisdic- tion of the Sultan — A general council, it is the prevalent opinion among Romanists, can control the authority of the pope, and in both cases the supreme functionaries are con- sidered spiritual officers ; but in the Church of England, priests, prelates, and primates, have no authority what- ever^ ecclesiastics though they be, to control, or even to modify, the spiritual supremacy of a lay and civil magis- trate. So anomalous a society was never witnessed, if society it can be called, which has not one single element of an organized community, — which consists of a mere conge- ries of individual atoms without laws enacted by themselves, without officers appointed by themselves, or powers lodged in themselves, which has no self-existing attributes, no self- regulating agency, which, in one word, has not one single element, even the most essential of a corporate body. Were we disposed to push our arguments, as far as we are warranted, we might deny that the Church of England is a Church at all. For let it be observed that, as from the nature of the case, spiritual power cannot be lodged in lay or civil hands, any more than authority to administer the * It is only one or two years ago that a country clergyman wrote the editor of the Christian Observer for advice under the follow- ing circumstances. A married gentleman in his parish lived in a state of open adultery with the wife of another man. A child was the fruit of this unhallowed union. The guilty, but shameless mother, actuated by feelings which we are glad we cannot analyze, came to the minister, insisting upon being "churched;" that is, that a particular office, appointed for the purpose, should be offer- ed np next Sabbath, returning thanks to the God of all holiiif'ss for the safe delivery of this infant, born in double adultery. We know not what was the issue of the case, but our brethren of the Synod of Ulster, in one of their late admirable works in favour of presbytery (Presbyterianism Defended, pp. 183-4. 203-4,) men- tion an instance of a minister who was kept for years in prison for having refused the strumpet of a gentleman resident in his parish admission to the Lord's Supper. The late case of the dean of York shows the jurisdiction, or rather total want of jurisdic- tion, which Uie prelate possesses over the clergy. 22 THE AKGLICAN Ri:FOIi3IATION. 19 sacraments, the Lord's Supper, as well as baptism, and to confer ordrrs, can be possessed by a layman or a woman ; and as all priestly pov/ors, by the constitution of the Church of England, are placed in the sovereign — the prelates be- ing his mere delegates, (and that, whether as in the reign of [ienry VIII., and of Edvvard VI., they are obliged to take out a commission to empower them to perform their func- tions, or submit, as they all must now do, to the 36th can- on ;) and as, moreover, every society must possess some species of organization, suited to its peculiar character, which the Church of England, as a Churchy does not pos- sess, it raises a serious question, whether that can be ac- counted a Church, if we are to take our ideas of a Church from the word of God. We certainly have no intention whatsoever to maintain, as so many of them do regarding us, that the individuals who compose that Church are cast out to the " uncovenanted mercies of God ;" for we rejoice to know that the grace of God is not restrained by any external impediments ; and we rejoice further to know, that there are- many of God's chosen ones in communion with that Church, as we doubt not was also the case even in the Church of Rome, during the middle ages ; but as a Churchy or scripturally constituted society, we dare not but have considerable difficulty in recognizing it.* * When Henry VIII. was about to appoint a commission to ex- amine the state of the religious houses, he, with one stroke of his pen, suspended all the prelates in England from the exercise of their jurisdiction. He afterwards, at the humble petition of each prelate separately presented, was graciously pleased to restore him to his functions by a commission, in which it was distinctly specified that he was to regard himself as the mere vicar ot' the crown. The terms of these commissions are sufficiently startling to any m;\n who has not sounded the lowest depths of Erastian- ism. We may give a condensed summary of one clause of these singular instruments: "Since all authority, civil and ecclesiasti- cal, flows from the crown, and since Cromwell," (a mere layman, but made vicar-general in sfdrituaUhuf; over all the clergy) "to whom (and not to the prelates) the ecclesiastical part has been committed," {vices noslras as the vicar of the crown) "is so occu- pied, that he cannot fully exercise it, we commit to you (each in- dividual prelate) the license of ordaining, granting insfitulion and collation,- and, in short, of performing all other ecclesiastical acts ; and we allow you to hold this authority during our pleasure, as you must answer to God and to us!" Similar commissions were granted by Edward VI. to his prelates. See the originals m Collier (fol.) ii. rec. Nos. 31, 41; or Barham's ed. ix. pp. 12.3, 157; Burnet, i. rec. b. iii. No. 14; and ii. No. '«; or London 8vo. ed. 1839 ; iv. pp. 104, 249. 23 20 THE A^'GLICA^' REFOKMATION. The Erastian thraldom to which the Church of England has been reduced, cannot but be galling to all her rightly- constituted clergy, and we so deeply sympathize with them, that we put the most favourable construction upon all their apologies for themselves. We cannot, however, lend the same indulgence to their attempts to prove that theirs is the best possible constitution, any more than we could listen with any patience to a West Indian slave, who should shake his fetters in our face as an evidence of the superior advan- tages of slavery. Even this, however, we might pass with a sigh for the degradation to which slavery reduces its vic- tims, but we cannot extend the same tolerance to their libels upon other Churches for having had the manliness of spirit to assert their proper liberty, and the regard to the honour of Jesus to vindicate his sovereign exclusive supremacy in his own Church. And yet a member of the Church of England can never think of defending his own Church, but he must at the same time attack the Churches of others, and especially the Church of Scotland,* Just notice the self- complacent absurdity of the following passage t'rom the last page of the work noticed in the preceding note, by the pre- sent bishop of Sodor and Man : " Compare," says Dr. Short, addressing men who are too ignorant to be capable of insti- tuting a comparison, or too prejudiced to be able to pass an impartial judgment, " compare v/hat took place in Scotland with what took place in England, at the period of the Refor- mation ;" and after showing some of those thinL':s which did take place in England, and stating that "the admirer of our Episcopal Church — our apostolic establishment" must thank the timid, if not the time-serving and Erastian Cranmer, that the Church of England was reformed precisely as she was, and that it did not happen there as it did happen am.ong us — we have Dr. Short's word for it — " that the force of the multitude ... in Scotland (had) thrown down what the Episcopalians will consider as almost the (church itself" And who, pray, composed that "multitude" of which Dr. Short speaks so very contemptuously ? The Christian people of Scotland, who through " the unction of the Holy One," had, by an ordination higher than the Church of England can confer, been made a " royal priesthood ;'' * See some specimens of this line of defence and attack, which would be amusing enough from their ludicrousness, if they were not pitiable from the perversity of judgment they display, in DRy^.\Tl07i. about caps and external vestments ; but i now, to my in- expressible sorrow, understand that it is about very ditFer- ent matters indeed," even the most vital and fundamental elements of the Christian Church, as the sequel of the letter shows,* Beza concludes by saying, " such is the state of the Anglican Church, exceedingly miserable, and indeed, as it ap})ears to me, intolerable." We might quote similar sentiments from other continental divines, such as BuUinger and Gualter, and may perhaps do so ere we close. But since the opinions of the Anglican Reformers themselves will be, in the circumstances, of more importance, and since we are very much hampered for want of space, we come at once to the recorded judgment which these great and gfjod men passed upon the prayer-book and the Church of England. The opinions of Grindal, successively bishop of I^ndon and airchbishop of York and Canterbury ; of Sandys, suc- cessively bishop of Worcester and London, and archbishop of York ; of Parkburst of Norwich, Pilkington of Durham, Jewell of Salisbury, nnd others, we need not refer to, as every one knows that they expressed themselves as strong- ly against the state of the Anglican Church as Sampson, Fox, Coverdale, or Humphreys. The only prelates of the first set appointed by Elizabeth who are claimed by Angli- cans themselves, as having been in favour of the reformed condition of the Church of England, are Archbishop Parker, Cox of Ely, and Ilorne of Winchester, (as for Cheney of Gloucester and Bristol, we give him up an avowed Papist,.) and if we show that these were dissatisfied with the condi- tion of the Church of England, even her apologists must acknowledge that nil Elizabeth's first prelates desired th-at that Church should bo further reformed. Parker was one of the compilers of the prayer-book, and we have already seen how much the first draft excelled the present liturgy. Even after it bad been enjoined, both ijy parliamfcnt and the queen, that the communion should be received kneeling, Parker administered it in his own cathe- dral to the communicants standing.]- At the very time when he was pt'rsecuting the Puritans for nonconformity, (1575,) he wrote Ce-cil, "-Doth your lordship think that I * The vicar of I^eeds not only admits, but contends that Beza was correct in slating that the contention entered into the vital elements of Christianity. See Dr. Hook*s Sermon, a Call to Union, &c., 2d ed., 74, 75. f McCrie's Life of Knox, 6ih ed., p. 64, note. 32 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 29 care either for caps, tippets, surplices, or wafer bread or any such ?"* And Strype says expressly, that this " press- ing conformity to the queen's laws and injunctions, pro- ceeded not out of fondness to the ceremonies themselves," which he would willingly see altered, " but for the laws establishing them he esteemed them."f " It may fairly be presun)cd," says Bishop Short, " that Parker himself entertained some doubts concerning the points which were afterwards disputed between the Puritans and the High- Church party ; for in the questions prepared to be sub- mitted to convocation in 1563, probably under his own direction, and certainly examined by himself," for his an- notations stand yet upon the margin of the first scroll, " there are several which manifestly imply that such a dif- ference of opinion might prevail. "J The questions here alluded to by Bishop Short embrace most of those matters which were at first disputed between the Puritans and con- formists. In particular, " It was proposed that all vest- ments, caps, and surplices, should be taken away ; that none but ministers should baptize ; that the table for the sacrament should not stand altar-wise ; that organs and curious singing should be removed ; that godfathers and godmothers should not answer in the child's name ;" and several other matters, which were then loudly complained of, but which remain in the Church of England till this day.§ It was only after he had been scolded into irritation by the queen, after his morose and sullen disposition and despotic temper had been chafed and inflamed by the re- sistance of the Puritans, and he felt or fancied that his character and the honour of his primacy were in jeopardy, that Parker committed himself to that course of persecution which has " damned his name to everlasting infamy." Had he even the inquisitor's plea of conscience, however unenlightened, to urge in his own defence, some apology, how inadequate soever, might be made for him. But Parker was a persecutor only from passion, or at best from policy. II Parker himself then was inclined to a further re- formation of the Church of England. * Strype's Parker, ii. 424. f Ibid. p. 528. + Sketch, &c,, p. 250. § Burnet, iii. 457, 458. Strype's Parker, i. 386. Rec. No. 39. II Bishop Short candidly acknowledges, that " when Parker and the other bishops had begun to execute the laws against noncon- fornoists, they must have been more than men," or less, "if they could divest their own minds of that personality which every one 3* 33 30 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. As to Cox again: in a letter to BuUinger, in 1551, we find him writing thus ; — " I think all things in the Church ought to be pure and simple, removed at the greatest dis lance from the pomp and elements of the world. But in this our Church what can I do in so low a station?" (he was then, if we rightly remember, only archdeacon of Ely :) " I can only endeavour to persuade our bishops to be of the same mind with myself. This 1 wish truly, and I commit to God the care and conduct of his own work."* In the following year we find him complaining bitterly of the op- position of the courtiers to the introduction of ecclesiastical discipline, and predicting that if it were not adopted, " the kingdom of God would be taken away from them."| After his return from exile, he joined with Grindal, (whose scru- ples in accepting a bishopric were hushed only by all the counsels and exhortations of Peter Martyr, BuUinger, and Gualter)! and the other bishops elect in employing the most strenuous efforts to effect a more thorough reformation in the Church of England, before they should accept of dio- ceses in it. When they found that they could not succeed, they seriously deliberated whether they could accept of pre- ferments in so popish a Church. At last they were in- duced to yield to the counsels of BuUinger and Gualter, and other continental divines whom they consulted, because the rites imposed were not in themselves necessarily sinful; because they anticipated that when elevated to the mitre, they should have power to effect the reformation they de- sired, and because, moreover, by occupying the sees they might exclude Lutherans and Papists, who would not only not reform, but would bring back the Church still further towards Rome.§ Even Cox, then, desired further reforma- tion in the Church of England, and was so dissatisfied with its condition, that notwithstanding of the gold and power it would bestow, (and both of them he loved dearly) he scru- pled to accept a bishopric within its pale. When we bear in mind his conduct at Frankfort, and his subsequent career in England, we may safely conclude that the Church that was too popish for Cox had certainly but few pretensions to the name either of Reformed or Protestant. must feel when engaged in a controversy in which the question really is, whether he shall be able to succeed in carrying his plans into execution." Sketch, &c., p. 251. » Burnet, iii. 303—4. f Strype's Mem. Ref. ii. 366 i Strype's Grindal, 41 — 44, Ap. No. 11. i Strype's An. ii. 263. Strype's Grindal, 41—49, 438. THE ANGLICAN KEFORMATION. 31 And finally, as to Home, he not only had scruples at first, like the rest, as to accepting a bishopric, but when he found that the reformation he anticipated he should be able to effect after his elevation could not be accomplished, he deliberated with himself, and consulted with the continental divines, whether it did not become his duty to resign his preferments. In conjunction with Grindal, he wrote for advice to Gualter, asking, whether, under the circumstances, he thought they could with a safe conscience, continue in their sees. Gualter induced Bullinger, whose influence was greater, to answer the question submitted to him. Bullinger accordingly replied, that if, upon a conscientious conviction, it should appear that, upon the whole, and all things considered, it were better to remain, then it became their duty to occupy their places, but if the reverse, then it was as clearly their duty to renounce them. He cautions them, however, against imagining, that because he gives this counsel, he therefore, in any manner, approved of the conduct of those who were for retaining " Papistical dregs." On the contrary, he urges, with the greatest warmth, that the queen and the rulers of the nation should be importuned to proceed further with the Reformation, and that, among other reasons, lest the Church of England should remain " polluted with the Popish dregs and oflscourings, or afford any ground of complaint to the neighbour Churches of Scotland and France." Further information on this sub- ject will be found in the note below.* * Since attempts have been, and are still made to represent the divines of Zurich as having been satisfied with the length to which reformation was carried in the Church of England, it is ne- cessary to show that the very reverse is the truth. Those who have access to the work, and can read the language, we would re- commend to peruse in full the letters sent by Grindal and Home to Bullinger and Gualter, and the answers returned by these di- vines, as they appear in Burnet's Records, B. vi. Nos. 75, 76, 82, 83, 87. Those who cannot read the ori2:inal, may form some idea of their contents from the translated Summary, iii. pp. 462 — 476. Grindal, whose scruples were never removed, and who therefore, wrote frequently and anxiously to foreign divines to obtain their sanction to the course he was pursuing, had, in conjunction with Home, written to Bullinger and Gualter, requesting further coun- sel regarding the propriety of their remaining in the Church of England. Perceiving, most probably, the wounded state of the consciences of their brethren in the Lord, Bu.linger and Gualter wrote a soothing reply, saying as much as they conscientiously could in favour of remaining in their cures. When the Anglican 35 32 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. Such, then, was the judgment deliberately formed and often repeated, even of those Anglican High-Church pre- lates, regarding the constitution and usages of the Church of England. We should much deepen the impression we prelates received this answer, they at once saw that the judgment of those eminent foreign divines would go far to stop the censures which the Puritans pronounced against their conforming brethren ; and although the letter was strictly private, they published it. As soon as Bullinger and Gualter were apprised of this act, they wrote a letter to the Earl of Bedford, one of the leaders of the Puritan party, complaining of the breach of confidence of which Grindal and Home had been guilty, and explaining the circum- stances in which their letter had been written, deploring that it had been made the occasion of further persecution against their dear brethren in Christ (the Puritans,) and urging upon the good Earl to proceed strenuously in purifying the Church of England of the dregs of Popery, which, to their bitter grief, they found were still retained within her. When Home and Grindal learned the feelings of their continental correspondents, they sent them a most submissive and penitential apology. In reply, Bullinger and Gualter mentioned several of those errors still existing in the Church of England, which they urged all her prelates to reform; such as subscriptions to new articles of.faith and discipline, theat- rical singing in churches, accompanied by the "crash of organs," baptism by women, the interrogations of sponsors, the cross, and other superstitious ceremonies in baptism, kneeling at the com- munion, and the use of wafer bread (which Strype informs us was inade like the "singing cakes" formerly used in private masses, Life of Parker, ii. 32 — 5,) the venal dispensations fr)r pluralites, and for eating flesh meat in Lent, and on "fish days," (which dis- pensations were sold in the archbishop's court,) the impediments thrown in the way of the marriage of the clergy, the prohibition to testify against, to oppose or refuse conformity to those abuses, the restricting all ecclesiastical power to the prelates; and con- cluded by imploring them, "in the bowels of Jesus Christ," to purge the temple of God from such Popish abominations. In reply to this faithful appeal, poor Grindal and Home write a very penitent and submissive letter, which we cannot read over at this day without the most painful emotion at the condition to which these men of God were reduced between their desire to serve God in the gospel of his Son, and their scruples of conscience against the antichristian impositions to which they were subjected. The drift of their letter was to show that they had no power to reform the evils complained of, (and which they condemn and deplore as much as their correspondents,) and that either they must remain as they are, or abandon their benefices, and see them filled by Papists, who would destroy the flock of Christ. In conclusion, they promise — but we must give their promise in a literal transla- tion — " We shall do the utmost that in us lies, as already we have done, in the last sessions of parliament and of convocation, and that, even although our future exertions should be as fruitless as 36 THE ANGLICAN RKFORM ATION. 33 desire to produce upon our readers, had we space also to give the sentiments of the more evangelical prelates ; of Parkhurst, for example, who, in a letter to Gualter in 1573, fervently exclaims, — " Oh, would to God, would to God, that now at last the people of England would in good earn- est propound to themselves to follow the Church of Zurich as the most perfect pattern ;" * or of his scholar and fellow- prelate Jewell, who calls the habits enjoined upon the min- sters of the Church of England, " theatrical vestments — • ridiculous trifles and relics of the Amorites," and satirizes thcjse who submitted to wear them as men " without mind, sound doctrine or morals, by which to secure the approba- tion of the people, and who, therefore, wished to gain their plaudits by wearing a comical stage-dress. "f But it is unnecessary. The following passage from a High-Church writer of the present day concedes all we desire to estab- lish. After having condemned the Erastianism of Cran- mer, and the want of what he terms " catholic" feelin^jj and the past, that all the errors and abuses which yet remain in the Church of England shall be corrected, expurgated and removed, according to the rule and standard of the word of God." In a preceding part of their letter they had said, that "although they might not be able to effect all they desired, they should not yet cease their exertions until they had thrust down into hell, whence they had arisen," certain abuses which they mention. And are these, then, the men who are to be regarded as approving of the extent to which reformation had been carried in the Church of Enjiland? We have given the seiitiments of the divines of Zurich at the greater length, because some of their letters are, till this day, per- verted, as they were at the time when they were written. Had this been done only by Collier, Heylin, and their school, we should not take any notice of it in our present sadly limited space, liut when such writers as Slrype, Cardwell, and Short, lend their names to palm such impositions upon the public mind, it is ne- cessary at once to show what was the real s'ate of the case. Dr. McCrie (Life of Knox, note R.) has charged the Anglican prelates with having given "partial representations" to the foreign divines, for the purpose of obtaining their sanction to the state of matters in England: and any man of competent knowledge of the subject, who reads over their letters, must be painfully aware, that, although they may not have designed it, yet, as was so very natural in their circumstances, they did write in a manner which could not but lead their correspondents into the grossest mis- takes. * Strype's An. ii. 286—342. f See many such passages in Dr. McCrie's note last referred to, and the letters in Burnet's Records. D 37 34 THE AXGLICAX REFORMATION. spirit in his coadjutors, and having denounced Hooper a " an obstinate Puritan— a mere dogged Genevan preacher," (the most opprc;brious epithets the writer can bestow.) an( Coverdale as a " thorough Puritan and Genevan, who offi cjated at the consecration of Archbishop Parker in his hlaci gown,'' (in italics, to indicate the sacrilegious profanatioi of the act — we wonder whether it invalidated his share, oj the whole of the proceeding,) the writer proceeds thus: — " The immediate successors, however, of the Reformers as often happens in such cases, went further than thei: predecessors did, and were more deeply imbued with th( ieelings of the day. The Episcopate, in the first part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, were successors of Hooper anc Coverdale, almost more than they were of Cranmer anc Ridley : indeed, it was only her strong Tudor arm tha kept them within decent bounds," (that is, that kept then from assnnilating the Church of England to the other Re- formed Churches.) « The greater part of them positively objected to the surplice — including Sandys, Grindal, Pil- kington, Jewell, Home, Parkhurst, Bentham, and all the leadmg men who were for simplifying our Church ceremo nicd in that and other respects, according to the Genevan, (that is, Presbyterian) model; Archbishop Parker almost standmg alone with the queen in her determination to up- hold the former." (And we have already seen that he was about as little enamoured of them as his coadjutors.) After having referred to some of Jewell's letters to the foreign divines written against the Anglican ceremonies, the writer makes an observation which ought to be ever present to the minds of those who read the censures of Jewel I and his cotemporaries. " It was no Roman Catholic ritual, we rc[>eat, of which he thus expressed himself, but our own doubly reHirmed prayer-book— the divine service as j.mc perjnrniedr * Who now are the lineal descendants and proper representatives of the Anglican Reformers?— the Puritans who desired further reformation, or those who so loudly praise our « Catholic Church, our apostolic es- tablishment," and vigorously resist every attempt to amend the most glaring corruptions in the Church of England? ^Ve wish the evangelical party would ponder the aiiswer that question must receive ;— we say, the evangelical party, for we are aware that high churchmen, if they moved at all, would move in the direction of Rome. * British Critic for October 1842, pp. 330, 331. 38 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 35 Having thus shown the opinions of the prelates regarding he constitution and ceremonies of the Church of England, 3t us now show the opinions of the inferior clergy : And lere one fact may stand for all. In the year 1562, a peti- ion was presented to the lower house of convocation, sign- d by thirty-two members, most of them exiles, and the >est men in the kingdom, praying for the following altera- ions in the service of the Church of England : 1 . That rgans might be disused, responses in the " reading psalms" iscontinued, and the people allowed to sing the psalms in netre, as was the custom on the continent, and had also cen practised by the English exiles, not only when there, ut after they had returned to their native land, and as was Iso the case among the Puritans when they non-conform- d to (for they never seceded or dissented from) the Church f England, of which they could never be said to have been ona fide members. 2. That none but ministers should e allowed to baptize, and that the sign of the cross should e abolished. 3. That the imposition of kneeling at the ommunion should be left to the discretion of each bishop 1 his own diocese ; and one reason assigned for this part f the petition was, that this posture was abused to idolatry y the ignorant and superstitious populace. 4. That copes nd surplices should be disused, and the ministers made ) wear some come^ly and decent garment, (such as the Jeneva gown, which all the early Puritans wore.) 5. That, s they expressed it themselves, " The ministers of the ^ord and sacraments be not compelled to wear such gowns nd caps as the enemies of Christ's gospel have chosen to e the special array of their priesthood." 6. That c€rtain Kords in Article 33, be mitigated, which have since been jmitted altogether. 7. That saints' days might be abolish- |d, or kept only for public worship, (and not, as was len the case, for feasting, jollity, superstition, and sin,) fter which ordinary labour might be carried on. This petition was eventually withdrawn, and another ery much to the same pur{)ose substituted for it. This cond petition prayed for the following alterations: — 1. ^hat saints' days be abolished, but all Sundays, and the rincipal feasts of Christ be kept holy. 2. That the liturgy e read audibly, and not mumbled over inaudibly, as had een done by the massing priests. 3. That the sign of the ross in baptism be abolished as tending to superstition. . That kneeling at the communion be left to the discre- on of the ordinary. 5. That ministers may use only a 39 36 THE ANGLICAN RF.FORJIATION. surplice, or other decent garment in public worship, and the administration of the sacraments. 6, That organs be removed from churches. After a protracted and vigorous debate, these articles were put to the vote, when forty-three, most of them exiles, voted that the petition be granted, and only thirty-five against it ; thus leaving a clear majority of eight in favoui of a further reformation. When, however, proxies were called for, only fifteen appeared for, while twenty-four appeared against the petition, being, on the whole, fifty- eight for, and fifty-nine against, leaving a majority of one for rejecting the prayer of the petition.* There is one point mentioned in the minutes of convoca- tion, an extract from which is given, both by Burnet anc Cardwell, which must be kept in view, to enable us to ar- rive at a correct conception of the sentiments of those who voted against the above articles. In the minute, it is dis- tinctly mentioned, that the most of those who voted agains granting the prayer of the petition, did so, not upon the merits, but only from a feeling that since the matters ir debate had been imposed by public authority of parliamen and the queen, it was not competent for convocation to take up the subject at all. Thus, the motion for which thej really voted was, not that the abuses complained of shoulc be continued, but that the convocation had no power to altei them. A second section of those who voted against thf articles, was composed of those who had held cures unde: Edward, and had a hand in the public affairs of his reign and who, having remained in England during the reign of Mary, had not seen the purer churches on the continent and regarded the reformation of Edward as sufficientl} perfect. A third section of the majority consisted of thos( who held benefices under Mary, and who were of course Papists in their hearts, and would therefore vote agains any further reformation. After we have thus analyzed thf par-ies, and weighed, instead of numbering, the votes, anc "»vhen, besides, we bear in mind that a majority of thos( who heard the reasoning upon the matters in dispute, vote( for further reformation, it is easy to see on whose side trutl and justice lay. There is, besides, another point to which Dr. Cardwel * Strype's An. i. 500—6. Burnet iii. 454, 455. Records, Bk vi. No. 74. Collier, vi. 371—3. Card well's Hist, of Coaf. 117- 120. 40 THE ANGLICAN EEF0R3IATI0N. 37 has called our attention,* which we regard of the very highest importance, and to which, consequently, we call the special attention of our readers. It is this, that although, since the time of Burnet and Strype, it has been always said that the number of those who voted for the Articles was fifty-eight, yet, when we count them fairly, they are fifty-nine, precisely the number who voted against them. Now, if we give the prolocutor (the same as our moderator,) a casting vote, Nowell, dean of St. Paul's, who was prolocutor of that convocation and voted in favour of the Articles, and would of course give his casting vote on the same side, this would give a majority in favour of further reformation. But how are we to account for the fact, that, if thus the numbers were equal, that fact should not be known to the members ? We should be glad to hear of any other way of solving the difficulty ; but the only mode of doing so that occurs to us, i,s to suppose that Parker or the queen bad recourse to the artifice employed by Charles I. in the Scottish parliament, viz., concealed the roll and declared that the majority was in their favour, while it was against them, as was clearly seen when the original came into the hands of the public. That Parker was capable of the manceuvre, no man who knows his character can for one moment question : and that Elizabeth would feel at the least as little scruple in doing so as Charles 1., he that doubts may consult the note at the foot of the page.t * Cardwell's Hist, of Cnnf., p. 120, note. + III 1559 a bill passed through parliament authorizing the queen to restore to their former cures, such of the returned exiles as had been unlawfully deprived; that is, by Mary on account of their Protestantism. "Yet," savs Strype, (Annals i. 99,) " 1 do not find it was enacted and passed "into law." It must therefore have been clandestinely suppressed by Elizabeth, who both hated and feared the Protestantism of the exiles. She acted very much in the same way in regard to the re-enacting of Edward's statute in favour of cU-rical marriages, (Ibid. 118.) The convocaticm of 1575, among other articles of reformation, breathing the spirit of Grindal who •was just then raised to the primacy, passed the following, that none hut ministers lawfully ordained should baptize, and that it should be lawful to marrv at any period of the year: but Eliza- beih cancelled both, (Strvpe's Grindal, 290—1.) We need not, however, multiply instances in which Elizabeth exercised this power, as it is admitted on all hands, that she both claimed and exercised it. (Cardwell's Documentary Annals, ii. 171 — 2, note ) The case most in point is the following, along with the libert> we have already seen she took with the first draft of the liturgy d2 4 41 38 THE AXGLICAN REFORMATION. From this induction of facts, it is most abundantly mani- fest that the prelates and the great majority of the leading members of the lower house of convocation, were de- cidedly in favour of a further reformation. It only further remains to finish this branch of our argument, that we show the feelings of the leading statesmen of the kingdom. This may be done in the following passage from one who is certainly a competent enough witness so far as know- ledge is concerned, and whom no one will accuse of any partiality towards the Puritans. After stating that several of the bishops were in favour of the Puritans, Hallam* goes on to say, " They" the Puritans, " had still more effectual support in the Queen's council. The Earl of Leicester, who pos- sessed more power than any one to sway her wavering and capricious temper, the Earls of Bedford, Huntington and Warwick, regarded as the steadiest Protestants among the aristocracy, the wise and grave Lord Keeper Bacon, the sagacious Walsingham, the experienced Sadler, the zealous KnoUvs, cortsidered these objects of Parker's se- verity (the Puritans) either as demanding a purer worship than had been established in the Church, or at least as worthy, by their virtues, of more indulgent treatment. Cecil himself, though on intimate terms with the arch- bishop, and concurring generally in his measures, was not far removed from the latter way of thinking, if his natural caution and extreme dread, at this juncture, of losing the Our readers are aware of the controversy as to how the celebrated clause, ("The Church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith,") crept into the Twentieth Article of the Church of England, when it occurs neither in the first printed edition of the Articles, nor in the draft of them which was passed by convocation, and which is still in existence, with the autograph signatures of the members. It is now the universal belief that Elizabeth inserted this clause, as well as cancelled the whole of the Thirty-ninth Article, whose title sufficiently indicates its contents, viz. "the ungodly (ir/ipii) do not eat the bcpdy of Christ in the sacrament of the supper," a dogma which Elizabeth, who believed in transubstantiation, could not admit. (See Lamb's Historical and Critical Essay on the the thirty-nine Articles, p. 35, &c. Cardwell's Hist, of Conf 21, 22, note. Card- well's Synodalia, i. 38, 39, note. Cardwell's Doc. An. ii. 171, note. Bishop Short's Sketch, &c. 327, note.) The person who could thus act was certainly capable of i"alsifying the votes of con- vocation, 1562. * Constitutional Hist, of England, i. 256, 257. 42 THE ANGLICAN T^EFORW VTION. 39 Queen's favour, had permitted liim more unequivocally to express it." Mr. Hallam by no means does full justice to the senti- ments of Cecil. No one can read his correspondence with the Puritans, and his private letters to the prelates, without being satisfied that that great statesman fully concurred in all the general principles of the former. Jn regard again to "The upper ranks among the laity, setting aside cour- tiers and such as took little interest in the disputes," these, says Mr. Hallam, " were chiefly divided between those attached to the ancient Church, and those who wished ibr further reformation in the new. I conceive the Church of England party, that is, the party adverse to any species of ecclesiastical change, to have been the least numerous of the three, (that is, Puritan, Popish, and Anglican,) durinnly preachers in the kingdom. In January 1564, eight vere suspended in the diocese of London. It was hoped hat this example would overawe the rest, and three months ilterwards tlie London clergy were summoned again to ubscribe to the canons, and conform to all the usages of he Church of England; but thirty refused, and were, of ;ourse, suspended.* A respite of eight months was given o the rest; and then in January 15(35 they were cited, ir-d thirty-seven having refused to subscribe, were sus- M'nded.f ' These, as we may well believe, were, even in he estimation of Parker himself, and, indeed, as he ac- knowledged, the best men and the ablest preachers in the liocese.ij: The insults offered, and the cruelties inflicted ipon these men, would, had we space to detail them, ntensate the indignation of our readers against their rulh- ess persecutors. The silencing of such preachers, and the consequent lesolation in the Church excited the attention of the nation. Ml men who had any regard for the ordinances of Cxod, vere shocked at the proceedings of the primate, and bitter complaints were made of him to the privy coimcil. Eliza- 3eth herself ordered Cecil to write him on the subject. Parker sullenly replied, that this was nothing more than le had foreseen from the first, and that when the queen lad ordered him to press uniformity, " he had told her, :hat these precise folks would offer their goods, and even :heir bodies to prison, rather than they would relent."§ And yet Parker, who could anticipate their conduct, could [leither appreciate their conscientiousness, nor respect their firmness. The persecutions commenced in London soon spread over the whole kingdom. We have already seen the most destitute condition of the diocese of Norwich, in which four hundred and thirty-four parish churches were vacant, and many chapels of ease fallen into ruins. Will it be credited, that in these circumstances thirty-six ministers, almost the whole preaching ministers in the diocese, were, in one day, suspended, for refusing subscription to the anti- christian impositions of the prelates ?|| This is but a speci- men of what took place throughout the kingdom. And when the people, having no pastor to teach them, met * Strype's Grindal, 144, 146. f H'id- l-''4. i Sirype's Parker, i. 429. § Ibid. i. 448. 11 Ibid. u. 341. 51 48 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. together to read the Scriptures^ forthwith a thunderinx^ edict came down from the primate, threatening them with fines and imprisonment it" they dared to pray together or read the word of God. In a certain small village a revival took place, under the ministrations of a reader, so illiterate that he could not sign his own name. As always happens under such circumstances, the people formed fellowship meet- ings. No sooner was this known than they were sum- moned to answer for such violations of canonical order. In a simple memorial, which would melt a heart of stone, these pious peasants stated to the inquisitors, that they only met together in the evenings, after the work of the day was over, to devote the time they formerly misspent in | dritiking and sin, to the worship of God and the reading -1 of his word. Their judges were deaf to their petitions and ] representations, and forbade them absolutely to meet any | longer for such purposes, leaving it to be inferred, by no ■ far-fetched deductions, that a man might violate the laws of God, with impunity ; but woe be unto him that should break the injunctions of the prelates.* And what was the crime for which these Puritans were suspended, sequestered, fined, imprisoned, and some of them put to death? Simply because they would not acknowledge that man, whether prelate, primate, or prince, lias authority to alter the constitution of God's Church, to prescribe rites and modes of " will-worship," and adminis- tration of sacraments, different from what He had appoint- ed in his word. Nothing but gross ignorance, or grosser dishonesty, will lead any man to say, as has been said, and continues to be said down to this day, and that not by ministers of the Church oi" England alone, but by others of whom better things might be expected,f that the Puritans refused to remain in their ministry merely because of the imposition of" square caps, copes, and surplices ;" or even, which are of higher moment, because of the "cross in baptism," and kneeling at the communion ; these things being considered simply in themselves. What they con- demned and resisted was the principle, that man has authority to alter the economy of God's house. " Consid- ering, therefore," said the ministers of London, in 1565, in a defence they published of their own conduct, " con- * Strype's Parker, ii. 381—5. f See Orme's Life of Owen, commented on by Dr. McCrie in his Miscellaneous Works, pp. 465, 466. 52 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 49 sidering, therefore, that at this time, by admitting the out- ivard apparel, and ministering garments of the Pope's Church, not only tlic Christian liberty should be manifestly nfringed, but the whole religion of Christ would be brought 10 be esteemed no other thing than the pleasure of princes, they iihe London ministers) thought it their duty, bemg ministers of God's word and sacraments, utterly to refuse" to submit to the required impositions. But if the prelates were determined to proceed in their infatuated career, then these enlightened servants of God professed their willing- ness " to^ubmit themselves to any punishment the laws did appoint, that so they might teach by their example true obedience both to God and man, and yet to keep the Christian liberty sound, and show the Christian reli- gion to be such, that no prince or potentate might alter the same." * When Sampson and Humphreys were required to sub- scribe and submit to the prescribed impositions, they re- fused upon the following, among other accounts: — "If, they said, " we should grant to wear priests' apparel, then it might and would be required at our hands to have ; shaven crowns, and to receive more Papistical abuses. Therefore it is best, at the^ first, not to wear priests' appa- rel."t It was the principle involved in these impositions they opposed. And well are we assured, that had it not been for the resistance to the first attempts to enslave the conscience, which were made by these glorious confessors and martyrs, other and still more hateful abuses of Popery would have been perpetuated in the Anglican Church. Only grant the principle, that man has the right to make such impositions, and where is the application of the prin- ciple to find its limit ? And as to the stale objection, that these men relinquished their ministry for frivolous rites and habits, it is enough to reply, that the objection is not founded upon truth. » As touching that point," (the habits,) says Cartwright, " whether the minister should wear it, although it be inconvenient ; the truth is, that I dare not be author to any to forsake his pastoral charge for the inconvenience thereof, considering that this charge (the ministry) being an absolute commandment of the Lord, ought not to be laid aside for a simple inconvenience or uncomehness of • Avud Strype's An. ii. 166, 167. f Strype's Parker, i. 340. ^ e2 5 53 60 THE ANGLICAN REFGKMATION. a thing which, in its own nature, is indifferent. . . . Wher it is laid in the scales with the preaching of the word of God, which is so necessary to him who is called thereunto, that a woe hangeth on his head if he do not preach it ; it is of less importance than for the refusal of it we should let go so necessary a duty." * We might challenge their accusers, whether Brownist or Prelatist, to show us sentiments more enlightened or more consistently maintained, since the world began. We have said so much upon this point, because we do not mean at present to enter upon a formal defence of the Puritans, although we may, perchance, do so elsewhere, and at greater length, hereafter, if God spare us. We have done this also to prevent our readers from being carried away by the oft-repeated libels of pert preten- ders to liberality, or of servile conformists to hierarchical impositions, against the best men that England has ever produced. The universities did little or nothing to provide minis- ters for the necessities of the times. The condition of Oxford at the accession of Elizabeth was deplorable in the extreme.t In 1563, Sampson, Humphreys, and Kings- mill, three Puritans, were the only ministers who could preach, resident in Oxford ;| and as if to deliver over that university to the unrestrained sway of Popery, the two former were ejected, while Papists swarmed in all the colleges. In one college, (Exeter,) in 1578, out of eighty resident members, there were only four professed Protes- tants.§ Whenever a Puritan was discovered, he was instantly expelled; but never, — so far as we could dis- cover, and we paid attention to the point, never, for mere Popery, was one Papist ejected, from either cure or college, throughout the whole reign of Elizabeth. Oxford con- tinued thus the stronghold of Popery ; and instead of pro- viding ministers for the Church of England, it provided members for Popish colleges " beyond the seas."|| It is instructive, not less to the statesman and the philosopher, than to the divine, to find the self-propagating power of error, and the tendency to conserve corruption, which has * Rest of Second Replie to Whitgift, ed. 1577, p. 262. _^ t See Jewell's Letters to Bullinger and. Peter Martyr on the btate of Oxford; Burnet's Records, bk. vi. 48, 56. + Slrype's Parker, i. 313. § Strype's An. ii. 196, 197. jjlbid. 390, 391. 54 THE ANGLfCAN REFORMATION, 51 been manifested in that celebrated seat of learning. When- ever Popery is assailed, it uniformly finds a safe retreat in Oxford. In the reign of Edward, Cambridge had received a larger diffusion of the gospel than the rival university. Almost all the first prelates of Elizabeth had been educated on the banks of the Cam, and all the principal preachers of the same period had been trained in the same place. Cam- bridge, in fact, along with London, was the head quarters of Puritanism, not less among the undergraduates, than the heads and members. From a faculty which had been granted by the Pope to that university, to license twelve preachers annually, who might officiate in any part of the kingdom, without having their licenses countersigned by the prelates, Cambridge seemed destined to be the salva- tion of England. The Protestant prelates, however, could not tolerate a license to preach, which even their Popish predecessors had patronized, and never ceased until they had deprived Cambridge of its privilege. Not satisfied with this prevention of preaching, Parker and his successor determined to root out Puritanism from its stronghold ; and as they had silenced its preachers in London, so they silenced its professors at Cambridge. Cartwright, John- son, Bering, Brown, Wilcox, and their fellows, were expelled, some of them imprisoned, and some of them driven into banishment. The salt being thus removed, the body sunk into partial corruption. Of Cambridge, however, it is right that it should be recorded, that what- ever of Protestantism F^ngland possesses, it owes to that university. How singular it is, that after the lapse of three centuries, the two English universities should, at this day, retain the distinguishing features which characterized them at the Reformation. In order to supply as much as they possibly could some instructors- for their parishes, the Anglican prelates estab- lished in their diocese what was called " prophesyings," or " exercises," that is, monthly or weekly meetings of the clergy for mutual instruction in theology and pulpit ministrations ; and the plan was found to work so admi- rably, that, as Grindal told the queen in 1576, when she commanded him to suppress the prophesyings, and di- minish the number of preachers, " where afore were not three able preachers, now are thirty meet to preach at Paul's Cross, and forty or fifly besides able to instruct 55 62 THE ANGLICAN KEFOEMATIOW. their own cures." * The prophesyings, however, we suppressed, and the people left to perish for lack of know- ledge. On a survey ot the condition of England at the time, nothing can more strongly convince a pious mind of the superintendence of a graciolis Providence, than that the kingdom did not sink into heathenism, or at least re- main altogether Popish. The moral character of the Anglican priesthood was of a piece with their ignorance and Popish tendencies. This subject is so disgusting, and the disclosures we could make so shocking, that we hesitate whether it were not better to pass by the subject in total silence. We may give an ; instance or two, however, as a specimen of what was the almost universal condition of this clergy, and our speci- | mens are by no means the worst we could adduce. San- dys of Worcester, in his first visitation in 1560, found in the city of Worcester, five or six priests, " who kept five or six whores a-piece."f And were they suspended! Our author gives not one single hint that they were. But had they preached the gospel at uncanonical hours, or saved sinners in uncanonical garments, they would not only have been deposed, but fined, imprisoned, and perhaps banished or even put to death. The laws of God might be violated v/ith impunity, but woe unto him who broke the laws of Elizabeth and Parker. Again, in 1559, at a commission appointed to visit the province of York, com- prising the whole of the north and east of England, with the diocese of Chester, which includes Lancashire, "the presentments," that is, the informations lodged against the incumbents, " were most fi*equent, almost in every parish, about fornication, and keeping other women besides their wives, and for having bastard children. "J: "As to Bangor, that diocese was much out of order, there being no preach- ing used, and pensionary concubinacy openly continued, which was an allowance of concubinacy to the clergy by paying a pension (to the bishop or his court,) notwithstand- ing the liberty of marriage granted." And Parker him- self was openly charged with having "such a commis- sioner there as openly kept thi-ee concubines. "§ This, let it be noticed, was not a libel by " Martin Marprelate," but * Strype's Grin3al, Rec. B. ii. No. 9, p. 568. We recomraenC. to our readers to peruse the whole of that noble letter, the nobles* that was ever addressed to Elizabeths f Strype's Parker, i. 156. ^ Strype*s An. i. 246. § Strype's Parker, i. 404. 56 THE ANGLICAN REFOKMATION. 53 an official report from a royal commission presented to the privy council. While Puritans crowded every pestifer- ous jail 'in the kingdom for merely preaching the truth as it IS in Jesus, these infamous priests filled every parish in England. Let any man assert that we have given the only, or the most scandalous instances we could rake up from the polluted sewer of the early Anglican Church his- tory, and we shall give him references to fifty times as many more ; for we decline polluting our pages with such abandoned profligacy. One of the most fruitful sources of these enormous evils under which the Church of England at this time groaned, was that prolific mother of all corruption, 'patronage^ which has never existed in a Church without corrupting it. In 1584, " a person of eminency in the Church" gives a fearful picture of the evils which " the devil and corrupt patrons" had occasioned to the Anglican estab- lishment. " For patrons now-a-days," he says, " search not the universities for most fit pastors, but they post up and down the country for a most gainful chapman ; he that hath the biggest purse to pay largely, not he that hath the best gifts to preach learnedly is pre- sented." * The bishops were just as corrupt in the disposal of the benefices in their gift as the lay patrons. Curtes of Chi- chester, for example, was charged by several gentlemen and justices of [)eace of his diopese, among other malver- sations of office, with keeping benefices in his gift long vacant, that he might himself pocket the fruits, and selling his advowsons to the highest bidder. f After a visitation of his province, Parker writes Lady Bacon, that " to sell and to buy benefices, to fleece parsonages and vicarages, was come to that pass, that omnia sunt venalia /" that all ranks were guilty of tho practice, " so far, that some one knight had four or five, and others, seven or eight benefices clouted together," and retained in their own hands, the parishes all the while being vacant ; while others again set boys and servants " to bear the names of such livings," and others again bargained them away at a fixed sum per year. " And," he adds, " this kind of doing was common in all the country.":}: * Strype's An. ii. 146. Ibid. Whitgift, i. 368. f Ibid. 117. t Sirype's Parker, i. 495 — 8. By the 22d apostolical canon, the 2d council of Chalcedon, and the 22d Trullan canon, Simonists, 5* 57 54 THE ANGLICAN KEFORMATION. When the Simonists came for orders or institution, they sometimes were rejected by the more conscientious pre- lates, on account, not indeed of their Simony, which, so far as we have noticed, never happened, but on account of their gross ignorance and scandalous lives. But the pat- rons, and these dutiful sons of the Church, anticipating by- three centuries, the practices with which we are, alas, but too familiar in our own day, were not thus to be defrauded of their " vested rights" and " patrimonial interests." They commenced suits in the civil courts, and harassed the bishops with the terrors of a quare impedit, and of a praemunire. They did not always, however, put them- selves to that trouble. Some of the presentees at once took possession of their benefices without waiting for orders, (as we shall by and by show,) and set themselves to read prayers, and administer quasi sacraments, or what was much more congenial to their tastes, to cultivate their glebes ; varying the monotony of attending " farmers' dinners" by occasional other indulgences much less " moderate." In consequence of this state of matters, pluralities and non-residence became universal. Nor could it well be otherwise when the prelates set such examples as that we are about to adduce before men by no means disinclined to follow them. We could show several examples of pluralism such as never, we are persuaded, was witnessed in any other Church. The case of the following Jacobus de Voragine, however, may stand for all. From the frequency and the urgency of the complaints that came up to the privy council regarding the state of the diocese of St. Asaph, a commission was appointed in 1587 to visit it. The visitors, on their return, laid the following report before the high commission court, viz. that " most of the great livings within the diocese, some with cure of souls and some without cure, are either holden by the bishop (Hughes) himself in conimendam^'' or by non-residents, the most of whom were laymen, civilians, or lawyers in the archbishop's court, through which dispensations to hold commendams were obtained. The prelate kept to his own share sixteen of the richest benefices. Fourteen of if prelates, or priests, or deacons, were to be deposed and excom- municated. Pray, what becomes of the " apostolical succession" in the Church of England, if these canons are held valid? And if the canons are rejected, pray, on what other foundation does the Church of England stand 1 5d THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 65 the same class were held by the civil lawyers, of course, as fees for granting him dispensations to hold the rest. There was not a single preacher within, the diocese, the " lord bishop only excepted," but three. One of the resi- dent pluralists holding three benefices, two of them among the richest in the diocese, kept neither " house nor hospi- tality," but lived in an ale house. The prelate also sold (some on behoof of his wife, some on that of his children, and some on his own) most, if not all, the livings in his gift, besides those reserved in his own hands. He would grant the tithes of any living to any person who would pay for them, reserving for the support of an incumbent what would not maintain a mechanic : in consequence of which the parishes remained vacant. In his visitations he would compel the clergy, besides the customary " pro- curations," as they are called, (that is, an assessment upon the clergy to pay the ordinary expenses of a prelate during a visitation through his diocese,) to pay also for all his train.* Our readers will not be surprised to hear that this wholesale dealer in tithes and benefices was amassing a handsome fortune and purchasing large estates, besides dealing in mortgages and other profitable speculations. But they will be surprised to hear that no comrnendam could be held without a dispensation from the archbishop's court, and that while hundreds of parishes throughout England were vacant for want of ministers to supply them, and while hundreds more were so poor that they could not support a minister,"!" Parker was accustomed to grant dis- pensations to prelates to hold commendams, for the purpose * Strype's An. iii. 435, 436, and iv. Ap. No. 32. •j- There are in En^Jland 4543 livings, if livings they can be called, under £10. See an extract from a document from ihe state paper office on the value of all the benefices in En2;land in C'lllier ix, Rec No. 99. " The Church of England probably stands alone," says Bishop Short, "in latter times as exhibiting instances of pccle5*iastical offices unprovided with any temporal support." Sketch, «fec. p. 188. "The extreme poverty which has been entailed on many of our livings," he says again, "is one of the greatest evils which afflicts our Church property," p. 509. And ht says elsewhere, that if it were not for the number of persons of independent fortune who take orders in the Church of England, (allured of course by the highest prizes,) many of the cures must remain vacant. The manner in which the Church of England, and our own Church also, were pillaged at the Reformation by our benevolent friends the patrons, is an inviting subject for a dissertation, but we must not enter upon it here. 50 B6 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. of being able to maintain what he so much loved and com- mended to others, viz., " the port of a bishop ;"* and they may also be surprised, that is to say, if they are not so well acquainted with the primate as we happen to be, when we tell them that Parker was paid a sort of per centage upon all these dispensations ; not that we insinuate that this had any share in inducing him to grant them, although his own maintenance of the " port of bishop" entailed upon him no trifling expense. f Our readers will now be prepared to receive the follow- ing account of the state of the Church and kingdom of England, drawn up by the industrious Strypej: from the papers of Cecil : — " The state of the Church and religion at this time (1572) was but low and sadly neglected The churchmen heaped up many benefices upon themselves and resided upon none, neglecting their cures. Many of them alien- ated their lands ; made unreasonable leases and wastes of their woods ; granted reversions and advowsons to their wives and children, or to others for their use. Churches ran greatly into dilapidation and decay, and were kept nasty and filthy, and indecent for God's worship Among the laity there was little devotion ; the Lord's day greatly profaned and little observed ; the common prayers n(4 frequented ; some lived without any service of God at all; many were mere heathens and atheists; the queen's own court an harbour for epicures and atheists, and a kind of lawless place because it stood in no parish ; — which things made good men fear some bad judgments impend- ing over the nation." And yet ministers of the Church of England can find no terms sufficiently sirong in which to j^^aise the reformation n their own Church, or dispraise that in the other Protes- tant churches. * For this purpose, he granted lo Cheney a dispensation to hold Bristol in commendam with Gloucester. And for precisely the same purpose, he granted Blethyn of LandafF a dispensation to hold the archdeaconry of Brecon, the rectory of Roget, a prebend in Landaff, the rectory of Sunningwell, and in addition, "to hold alia qusecunque, quotcunque, qualiacunque, not exceeding £100 per ann." Strype's Parker, ii. 421, 422. f As a specimen of the manner in which Parker maintained the " port of a bishop," the reader may consult Strype's Parker, i. 378—380, 253, 254 ; ii. 278, 296, 297, &c. \ Life of Parker, ii. 204, 205. 60 THE ANGLICAN REFOKMATION. 57 It may not be improper, although we have scrupulously confined ourselves to Church of England authorities, to give the testimony of a contemporary Puritan as to the condi- tion of that Church about 1570 : — " I could rehearse by name," says our author, " a bishop's boy, ruffianly both in behaviour and apparel, at every word swearing and staring, having ecclesiastical promotions — a worthy prebend (prebendary ?) no doubt. I could name whoremongers being taken, and also con- fessing their lechery, and yet both enjoying their livings and also having their mouths open, and not stopped nor forbidden to preach. I know also some that have said mass diverse years since it was prohibited, and upon their examination confessed the same, yet are in quiet possession of their ecclesiastical promotions. I know double beneficed men that do nothing but eat, drink, sleep, play at dice tables, bowls, and read service in the Church, — but these infect not their flocks with false doctrine, for they teach nothing at all."* Where is the man who ponders over these statements that will not sympathize with the bishop of Sodor and IVIan, in the reflection with which he closes his history of the reign of Elizabeth? — "The feeling which the more attentive study of these times is calculated to inspire," says Dr. Short,"!" " is the conviction of the superintendence of * Parte of a Register, p. 8. See also passim, the first of the Mar Prelate Tracts, just reprinted by Mr. Jc>hn Petheram, hook- seller, 71 Chancery Lane, London. The Mar Prelate Tracts having been written in a satirical style, were disclaimed by the stern and severe Puritans of the times, but so far as facts are con- cerned, we hold them perfectly trustworthy. We have read through Martin's Epistle, just published, and will at any time, at five min- utes' warning, undertake to establish by positive or presumptive evidence the substantial, and in the great majority of cases the verbal, truth of any important fact it contains. Mr. Petheram intends, should he receive sufficient encouragement, to reprint by subscription, in a neat cheap form, several of the old Puritan tracts, such as The Troubles at Frankfort, Admonition to P.irlia- ment. Parte of Register, and others exxeedingly valuable, but so exceedingly rare, tliat not one in a hundred of our readers can ever have seen them. Mr. Petheram illustrates these tracts by judicious antiquarian notes, that add greatly to their value. We recommend our readers in the strongest terms to possess. them- selves of these curious and valuable productions, and trust Mr. Petheram may receive such encouragement in his spirited enter- prise as may induce him to reprint even larger works of the old Puritan divines. t Sketch, &c., p. 318. F 61 58 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. Providence over the Church of Christ." Assuredly but for the vvatchfiil providence of the God of all grace, the Church of Christ in England could never have survived the reign of Elizabeth. There is just one subject more to which we must allude before we bring the lengthened sketch of the Anglican Reformation to a close ; and we do so in order to show our readers that if" apostolical succession," or an uninterrupted succession of ministers canonically baptized, and prelatically ordained and consecrated, be essential to the being of a Church, then the Church of England not only cannof prove that she has this essential qualification, but we can prove that she has lost it, at least to an extent that invalidates all her pretensions to its possession. We have some time ago shown, that, on canonical prin- ciples, baptism is valid only when it is administered by a minister canonically, that is, as it is commonly understood, prelatically ordained; and that without such baptism a man's orders, however canonically conferred, are null and void, inasmuch as he wanted a qualification which is essential as a substratum for orders subsequently received. Ministers of the Church of England, if they would prove that they possess an apostolical succession, must first prove that all through whom baptism and orders have descended to them have themselves been canonically baptized and ordained. But how can this be proved in the presence of such facts as the following? Midwives, about the period of the Reformation, were, it would appear, frequently guilty of changing infants at birth, strangling and beheading them, and baptizing them in what were called cases of necessity, with perfumed and artificial water, and " odd and profane words" and cen^monies. On these accounts it was deemed necessary not only to bind them over to keep the peace towards these "innocents," but to grant them a species of orders, by which they might be admitted among the subaltern grades of the hierarchy. Parker, for ex- ample, in 1587, grants to Eleanor Pead, a license to ad- minister baptism, (having first exacted of her an oath of canonical obedience) of the following tenor, — " Also, that in the ministration of the sacrament of baptism, I will use apt, and the accustomed words of the same sacra- ment, that is to say, these words followinij, or the like in effect, ' I christen thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,' and none other profane words." * * Strype's An. i. ii. 242 — 3. 62 THE ANGLICAN REF0R3IATI0N. 59 Now, without being so hypercritical as to maintain that Parker, in calling the words " I christen thee," &c. " pro- fane words," as in the above sentence he necessarily does, seems himself to acknowledge the invalidity of such pre- ;ended sacrament ; and without maintaining that the omis- sion of the scriptural term " I baptize," and the substitution )f the unscriptural and heretical term "I christen," invali- iates the whole act, (even had it been performed by Parker limself,) but granting that these irregularities derogate lothing from the validity of the ordinance, as performed Dy the said Eleanor, we yet beg leave to demand of every )retender to the apostolical succession in the Anglican Jhurch, to prove to our satisfaction that some of his ghostly athers were not " christened" by Eleanor Pead, or some )f her " sage" sisterhood ; and if they were, then to show IS any authority whatever that such " sage femme" has to idminister baptism any more than the Lord's Supper ; md finally, if he contends that Eleanor Pead did, or could )0ssess such authority, then we ask on what ground could he be inhibited from performing the other acts of the min- stry, or why deacons, priests, and prelates are at all ne- :essary, seeing an apostolical succession of midwives is just as sufficient as that of prelates or popes ! We trust hese remarks may not be considered venj unreasonable. But we possess ample evidence that midwives were not he only uncanonical administrators of sacraments during he Anglican Reformation. We have already shown that be bishops were persecuted, both by patrons and presen- ces, when ordination and institution were refused to un- ualified candidates.* But we have now to show that [lany of those whose only object in getting a " living," vBiS what the term so expressively signifies, on meeting nth patrons, whose only desire was to make the most of leir " patrimonial rights, and vested interests," without •oubling prelate or primate for orders, at once, not only )ok possession of the temporalities, but set themselves ) perform all clerical acts, as ministers of the parishes, n 1567, in a visitation of the cathedral of Norwich, was discovered that one of the archdeacons (a part f whose functions it is to institute, or as we call it, to iduct, into benefices) and a prebendary were not in orders t all.f In 1568, the bishop of Gloucester wrote Parker * See for example Strype's Parker, ii. 84 — 87. + Strype's Parker, i. 492. . 63 60 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. that he had discovered in his diocese two men who had " administered the communion, christened infants, and married people, and done other spiritual offices in the Church, and yet never took holy orders. One of them had counterfeited that bishop's seal, and the other was per- jured."* In 1574, there was "one^Lowth, of Carlisle side, who, though he had for fifteen or sixteen years exer- cised the function, yet he proved to be ordered neither priest nor minister."t He was discovered in consequence of some irregularity in his conformity, which led to his examination, and in consequence of which he was dis- covered to be a mere layman. Had he conformed, like so many more who were in similar circumstances, he might perhaps, layman though he was, have risen to the bench. In 1582, the bishop of St. David's wrote to Walsingham that he found in his diocese " divers that pretended to be ministers, and had counterfeited divers bishops' seals, as Gloucester, Hereford, Landaff and his predecessors, being not called at all to the ministry." There must have been at least four of them, and they had been in their cures " by the space of eight, ten, twelve, and some fourteen years."|; " But among the most scandalous churchmen in these days (1571,) the greatest surely," says Strype,§ who, however, knew far too much to be very confident in his assertion, — " the greatest surely was one Blackall He had four wives alive. ... He had intruded himself into the ministry for the space of twelve years, and yet was never lawfully called nor made minister by. any bishop. ... He was a chopper and changer of benefices," (that is, he was success- ful in getting a variety of presentations to benefices in various parts of the country, into which he intruded him- self, without asking the leave or concurrence of any prelate — a very frequent occurrence at the time,) " little caring by what ways or mean>s so (as) he might get money from any man. Re would run from country to country, and from town to town, leading about with him naughty women, as in Gloucestershire he led a naughty strumpet about the country, (nick) named Gree?i Apron. He altered his name wherever he went, going by these several surnames, Blackall, Barthall, Dorel, Barkly, Baker! !" Was there ever a church upon the earth in which such * Strype's Parker, i. 534. f Ibid. ii. 400. Life of Grindal, 275—6. t Strype's Life of Grindal, 401. § Annals, iii. 144—5. 64 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 61 monster as this could exist, in which such atrocious irregu- larities, and not only irregularities, but criminalities, could be openly perpetrated for the space of twelve years, without censure or detection, but the Church of England alone ? And are we now, in blind uninquiring submission to " bulls" from Oxford, or London or Lambeth, in spite of such infa- mous facts open to the whole world, — are we, renouncing the characteristic attributes of man, and resigning the direc- tion of our judgments, and the interests of our souls into the hands of the successors, not of the apostles, but of such mis- creants as Blackall, to receive, as the only commissioned messengers of Heaven to our land, the ministers of the Church of England 1 So common in fact was the practice of taking possession of benefices without orders, and when the right of' possession was at any time questioned, of forging letters of orders, that in 1575, that is, seventeen years after the Anglican Church was settled under Elizabeth, the matter was brought before convocation, and it was enacted, that "diligent inquisition should be made for such as forged let- ters of orders," and " that bishops certify one another of counterfeit ministers." * The reason of this last enactment was, that when one of these " counterfeit ministers" was de- tected in one diocese, he fled into another, and so little unity of action«was there, or can there ever be, in a prelatic regi men, (unlike our Church courts) that the same course of " counterfeit ministry" mifjht be gone throuo;h in succession in all the dioceses in England. What now, we repeat, becomes of the claim to the apos- tolical succession, so confidently and offensively put forth by ministers pf the Church of England? "Even in the memory of persons living," says archbishop Whately,+ " there existed a bishop, concerning whom there was so much mystery and uncertainty prevailing, as to when, and where, and by whom he had been ordained, that doubts ex- isted in the minds of many persons whether he had ever been ordained at all," . . . and Irom the circumstances of the case, and from the fact that such doubts did prevail in the minds of well-informed persons, it is certain " that the cir- cumstances of the case were such as to make manifest the possibilily of such an irregularity occurring under such cir- cumstances." Such an irregularity, then, as a man not only * Strype's Grindal, 290. One of these was e. g. summoned be- fore the convocation of 1584. Strype's Whitgift, i. 398. f On the Kingdom of Christ, p. 178. f2 6 65 62 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. officiating in the lower grades of the ministry, but even rising to the primacy of the Church of England, without ever hav- ing been in orders, or rather such a subversion of the very first elements of an apostolical constitution, was not confined to the dark and troublous period of the Reformation, when the whole framework of society was dissolved into its first rudiments, and every species of irregularity not only might, but as we know did occur, but the very same " unchurch- ing" irregularities have existed in the Church of England down through every age of its history, " till within the me- mory of persons now living." Any one who will look at a " genealogical tree," and observe how many wide spreading and far distant branches may spring from one stem, will easily perceive how a very few such unordained or " coun- terfeit ministers" as we have referred to, and shown to have existed in the Church of England, were amply enough to have destroyed all apostolical succession in the kingdom. Such withered branches could not transmit any portion of the " sacred deposit." All who have succeeded to them are no successors of the apostles ; and we challenge any, and every minister in the Church of England to prove to us that he has not received all the orders he ever possessed, through some of these Eleanor Peads, Lowths of Carlisle-side, or Blackalls — a glorious parentage, certainly, of wTiich they have great reason to be vain. We have not, for our own part, been very much addicted to boast of our ancestry, albeit it contains names of whose call and commission from Heaven we have no more doubt than we have of those of the apostle Paul. We have com- monly found, in private lite, that such boasting is very much a characteristic of u\>s{ixn parvenus, and we have yet to learn that it is greatly different in regard to official descent. Should occasion, however, demand, we have no great dislike to pay a visit to the Herald's College, and demonstrate to our South- ern neighbours that we have no such bar sinister in ours as defaces their clerical escutcheon. May we therefore drop a hint to certain parties, that, however they may do it in pri- vate, where no one may mark their confusion, they should be specially chary how, in public, they turn up any ecclesi- astical " Debrett." Much as they decry, and often as they twit our Wesleyan friends, he must have a peculiarly con- stituted taste, indeed, who would not prefer even genuine " Brumagem orders" to such as have been forged by such ghostly progenitors as they boast of. We had purposed to show multifarious and other irregu- 66 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 63 larities in the organization of the Church of England. We have, however, more than exhausted our present space. But should God grant us health we may soon return to the sub- ject, for we can assure our readers we have only broken ground, and simply tested the range and capabilities of our ordnance. It is assuredly in itself no grateful task to rake up the errors of the dead, and expose the defects in our neighbours' ecclesiastical constitution. But it has become necessary. We have now no option. The Church of Eng- land has now, for years, unprovoked, unresisted, poured ujjon us such torrents of abuse, from her lordliest prelates to her obscurest curates, — she has vilified all we held sacred, insulted all we held dear, and we must either tamely submit to see our beloved Church covered with infamy, or hurl back the foul missiles upon the aggressors. An observation or two in conclusion. We have, upon this occasion, confined our remarks to the history of Eliza- beth's first prelates. The second set became much less pious and Protestant, and consequently we have selected the period most favourable to the Church of England. This is clearly implied in a passage we have given from the British Critic, and we may hereafter prove it, should any call it in question. Our authorities have been exclusively from Church of England writers ; not certainly because we deemed them more trustworthy than others, for no man of any pretensions to candour will dispute, as Bishop Short has remarked,* that members of other communions cannot be supposed to be more prejudiced against her than her own members are in her favour. We have selected this course, because we have found her own writers establish all that we desire in order to accomplish our end. When they write against the Church of Scotland, will they follow our example? If they do, it will present a new phasis in the controversy. Hitherto they have taken as their aulhorities works written by non-jurors, and Scottish prelatic sectaries, the most unscrupulous con- troversialists that ever disgraced a cause that had little indeed to commend it. We have said that the Church of England, in every thing of importance, stands now precisely where she stood at the demise of Elizabeth. This may be called in question by those who know not the facts of the case. Wc therefore appeal to the following testimony of one of her living prelates. " The kingdom," says Bishop Short, f " has * Sketch, (fee. sect. 419. f Sketch of the History of the Church of England, 2d edit, ppi 67 64 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. for the last two hundred years, been making rapid strides in every species of improvement, and a corresponding altera- tion in the laws on every subject has taken place ; during this period nothing has bee7i remedied in the church,'''' (the italics are ours.) So grievous are the abuses which the anomalous constitution of the Anglican church has entailed upon her, that Dr. Short hesitates not to say, (with his usu- ally interjected " perhaps," whenever he gives utterance to an unpalatable sentiment) that " the temporal advantages which the establishment possesses, are, perhaps, more than counterbalanced by the total inability of the church to regu- late any thing within herself, and the great want of discip- line over the clergy ; .... while the absurd nature of our ecclesiastical laws renders every species of discipline over the laity not only nugatory, but when it is exercised, fre- quently unchristian, ridiculous, and in many cases very oppressive," as in the case of excommunication, by which a man is deprived, not only of all ecclesiastical privileges, but even of civil, yea, of all social rights. Some of our readers may be inclined to ask, if all these things be in reality so, how does it happen that good, pious, enlightened men remain in the communion of the Church of England ? Now this is a question that ought not to be asked, and beincr asked, oufrht not to be answered. We iudsje no man. To his own master he standeth or falleth. We can, however, assign one reason, which, besides the all-powerful one of the prejudices of education, is sufficient to account to our own mind, and that without any imputation against them, for such men remaining in the Anglican church, and that is, total ignorance of her character and constitution. Let not this insinuation startle our readers. We shall prove that such ignorance exists. Dr. Short, in the preface to his work, (p. 1,) assigns as the reason that led him to commence his history, that he " discovered after he was admitted into or- ders," and when engaged as tutor in his college, " that the knowledge of English ecclesiastical history which he pos- sessed was very deficient He was distressed that 436 — 7. Note. This is a work which we recommend to our readers. That we do not agree with Br. Short in many of his statements we have not concealed. But we should do him injustice if we did not say, that although his work is brief, too brief, and not free from faults, from which we never expect to see a history of the Church of England, by one of her own ministers, altogether ex- empt, still it is incomparably the best work on the subject which an Anglican clergyman has ever produced. 68 THE ANGLICAN REFORMATION. 65 his knowledge of the sects among the philosophers of Athens was greater than his information on questions which affect the Church of England." Dr. Short's is no singular case. The ignorance of Anglican ministers upon the history and constitution of their own church would astonish our readers. A memorable instance of this has recently come to light in this city,* and we allude to it because the well-known con- scientiousness and high character of the party concerned give the instance all the greater authority. The Rev. D. T. K. Drummond, for whom personally we entertain the very highest respect, has shown, in one of his recent tracts, that he never, till within the last few days, had examined, or at least understood, the canons of that sect of which he was a minister; or at all events, that he was ignorant of what it regards as by far the most important part of its services, — the communion office. Mr. Drummond was, for years, a minister in that body, and it does not appear that a shadow of suspicion ever crossed his mind that its constitution con- tained any thing either positively erroneous, or sinfully de- fective ; indeed his character is a sufficient guaranty that no such thought ever found harbourage in his breast, for had he but entertained the suspicion, he would not have remained one day in that communion. And yet in the constitution and liturgical offices of that sect, there existed all the while a plague-spot so deadly, that, on its discovery, Mr. Drum- mond is compelled, as he values his own soul, to come out of Babylon, that he be not a partaker of her sins and punish- ment. Such will also be the result to which pious ministers in the Church of England will be brought, should they ever unprejudicedly and dispassionately examine her consti- tution. And should Mr. Drummond, as we doubt not he will, continue his investigations in the spirit in which he has commenced them, we shall be astonished, indeed, if his love of truth, and of Him who is the truth, does not lead him to renounce all communion with the Church of England, as he has already done with the Scottish prelatic sectaries. A sifting time is at hand ; and when the breath of the living God has blown over the thrashing floor of the Church, we confidently anticipate that only the chaff shall remain in the Church of England. * Edinburgh. THE END. Stereotyped by S. DOUGLAS WTTETH, No 7 Pear St., Philadelpm*. 6* 69 DATE DUE ^ 0Tt 1 CAYLORD PRINTED INU.S.A. N^ JKI BW5117.A58 The Anglican reformation, or. The Church Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library J 1 1012 00042 2859