IN THE ECCLESIASTICAL REVOLUTION UNDER HENRY VIII.

The Reformation in England, as elsewhere, was a twofold movement—an outer and inner one. As a politico-ecclesiastical movement, it was an insurrection against Papal claims: as a religious revival, it was a resurrection of Scripture life and doctrine. As the work of Henry VIII. and his daughter Elizabeth, it was more of the nature of a political and ecclesiastical revolution; but as the work of Bible-taught and Bibleloving men, it was a resuscitation of long-buried gospel truth, and preaching of the Word. Both movements were, in a sense, contemporaneous, yet the former had the precedence.1

What Henry VIII. promoted, was not a religious reformation, but a politico-ecclesiastical REVOLUTION, on a scale that England had never yet seen. His aim was, to make the Church of Christ in England a purely national institution, with himself as Pope; and he secured this end by his two gigantic measures: absolute severance from the Papal See, and the total suppression of the monasteries.

It were, of course, both shallow philosophy and imperfect history, to say that Henry VIII. or Elizabeth produced the Reformation. The distinctive peculiarity, however, of the Reformation in England, was its dependence to so large an extent on the policy or caprice of the monarch. This dominates the whole situation, and accounts for many peculiar features and tendencies of the English Reformation. Elsewhere, the vehemence of the popular will is the initiating and potent factor. In England, the work moved round a political, in Scotland, round an ecclesiastical centre. The prominent outcome of the former was a nobly free State: of the latter, a notably free and self-governing Church.

THE FIRST ASPECT OF THE CHANGE IN ENGLAND, WAS THE SEVERANCE OF THE KINGDOM FROM THE SUPREMACY OF ROME. For the first eighteen years of his reign, Henry VIII. had

1 As Hallam remarks (Constitutional History, chap. ii., where the reader will find on the whole the best summary and most accurate view of the situation at this time), "The English Reformation, down to the middle of Elizabeth's reign, was much more a political than a religious movement with the great proportion of English people."

supported in its most extreme form the doctrine of the Papal supremacy; and for his work against Luther had won from the Pope the famous title, "Defender of the Faith." Then came the sudden and violent breach with Rome, over the question of the king's desired divorce. For, when the Pope would not be terrified into granting that divorce, Henry, having got Wolsey and the Bishops into his power (by the clever stroke of involving them in a violation of the great statute of Præmunire), wrung from the ecclesiastics that evermemorable and all-determining measure, "the submission of the clergy." And (having still the nation strongly at his back) there came then the violent wrench from Rome, when Henry got Parliament, after various strong enactments, to pass the strongest of them all: "the Act of Supremacy," in 1534, by which he not only became Supreme Head of the Church in England, but acquired a mastery over the Bishops, even in their own province. Statute law decreed, that "Archbishops, Bishops, Archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical persons, have no measure of jurisdiction ecclesiastical, but by and under the king's majesty, the only undoubted SUPREME HEAD of the Church." To lend emphasis to this novel and revolutionary theory of ecclesiastical authority (whereby all spiritual as well as temporal power was resolved into the royal supremacy), Henry made Thomas Cromwell his vicegerent in all ecclesiastical matters, for reforming all heresies, scandals, and abuses; and, by virtue of this office, Cromwell sat in the very Convocation itself, even above the Archbishops.

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It was for conscientiously refusing to own this supremacy, that Sir Thos. More and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were executed.

* In an extraordinary document to be afterwards noticed (the original in Cotton. Lib. E. 5), and which is signed first by "Thomas Cromwell," then by Cranmer, and his fellow Archbishop of York, as well as by eleven Bishops, twenty-three Doctors of Theology and Professors of Canon Law, and "some other hands there are that cannot be read," they say in name of the king, "As touching the sacrament of Holy Orders, we will that all Bishops and preachers shall instruct and teach our people" "that in the New Testament there is no mention of other degrees, but of Deacons or Ministers and of Presbyters or Bishops;" and then follows the extremely noteworthy passage: "Of these two orders only, that is to say, priests and deacons, Scripture maketh express mention, and how they were conferred of the Apostles by prayer and imposition of hands; but the primitive Church afterwards appointed inferior degrees, as sub-deacons, acolytes, exorcists, etc.; but lest peradventure it might be thought by some, that such authorities, powers,

The other great revolutionary measure was THE TOTAL SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES- an event that drew immense consequences in its train. For the removal of the mitred abbots from the House of Peers changed the whole aspect of matters there. The Lords Temporal now preponderated over the Lords Spiritual, so that the ecclesiastical aristocracy had to play, if an influential, yet a very secondary and subordinate part. For now the three estates of the realm were no longer King, Clergy, and Laity, but King, Lords, and Commons. As a body, the Bishops hated and opposed the progress of the Reformation of the Church in all its forms, but they had to succumb at critical junctures to the inevitable; and thus the revolutionary methods had the form and show of law and order, in spite of all the helpless votes or protests of the Church's episcopal leaders and representatives.1

Considered as a religious movement, the most potent factor in the Reformation was not the Church or her functionaries, but the translation and dissemination of the Bible by the labours of Tyndal and Coverdale, with other books relating to its teaching and doctrines. For a time this was permitted by

and jurisdictions as patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and metropolitans now have, or heretofore at any time have had, justly and lawfully over other bishops, were given them by God in holy Scripture; we think it expedient and necessary that all men should be advertised and taught, that all such lawful power and authority of any one bishop over another were and be given them by the consent, ordinances, and positive laws of MEN ONLY, AND NOT BY ANY ORDINANCE OF GOD IN HOLY SCRIPTURE; and all such power and authority which any bishop has used over another, which has not been given him by such consent and ordinance of men, is in very deed no lawful power, but plain usurpation and tyranny." See Burnet's Hist. of Reformation, vol. i. Append.

The great Statute of Provisors (25th of Edward III., 1350) claims distinctly, that Prelacy was erected in England by the Crown and its Councillors, apart from any other authority; and it is on this that Henry VIII. falls back in support of his own spiritual supremacy.

In referring to the fall of the monasteries and the exclusion of abbots from both the House of Lords and Convocation, a modern High Church historian truly remarks: "Henceforth there was a gulf between the clergy and the laity. The inferior clerical orders were abolished at the same time with the monks and friars ; and the nation grew accustomed to think that there could be no other clergy but bishops, priests, and deacons. This is a modern and restricted conception, which has wrought calamitously on the fortunes of the Church."-Dixon's History of Church of England, vol. ii. p. 220.

A very remarkable book, "The INSTITUTION of a Christian Man," was drawn up with royal authority by the Bishops and other divines in 1537. This was called "The Bishops' Book," to distinguish it from a more Romish version in 1540, called "The King's Book," with the title "The ERUDITION of a Christian Man." It

the Crown, under the more Protestant influence of Cromwell and Cranmer; but in 1539 Henry VIII. became vehemently reactionary in doctrine and discipline, and issued the terrible Six Articles, or "Bloody Statute," as it was called, or "Scourge with six thongs," for the "abolition of diversity of opinion in religion, whereby such fearful havoc was done during the remaining eight tyrannical years of his reign. William Tyndale, the great Bible translator and the best apostle of evangelic faith of his day, had perished under a former statute in 1536; but, like other advanced reformers, he had descried from Scripture the essential basis of Presbyterianism. In his "Practice of Prelates," issued in 1530, he not only proclaimed that “the covetousness of prelates was the decay of Christendom," but in setting forth "what officers the apostles ordained in Christ's Church," he says:

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"Wherefore the Apostles, following and obeying the rule, doctrine, and commandment of our Saviour Jesus Christ their Master, ordained in His kingdom and congregation Two officers, one called after the Greek word bishop, in English an overseer, which same was called priest after the Greek, elder in English. Another officer they chose, and called him deacon after the Greek, a minister in English, to minister the alms.”

was read and approved by both Houses of Parliament, after being revised by the king's own hand, and was dedicated to his faithful subjects, as a standard of Christian belief. It has some remarkable passages denying the divine origin of prelacy. We have already given one. The following is no less striking: "Albeit the holy fathers of the Church which succeeded the Apostles, minding to beautifie and ornate the Church of Christ with all those things which were commendable in the temple of the Jews, did DEVISE not only certain other ceremonies than be before rehearsed, Tonsures, Roesures, Unctions, and such other observances to be used in the administration of the said sacraments, but did also institute certain inferior orders or degrees, janitors, lectors, exorcists, acolists, and sub-deacons, and deputed to every one of those certain offices to execute in the church, wherein they followed undoubtedly the example and rites USED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT: YET THE TRUTH IS, THAT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT THERE IS NO MENTION MADE OF ANY DEGREES OR DISTINCTIONS IN orders, but ONLY OF DEACONS OR MINISTERS, AND OF PRIESTS OR BISHOPS.

1 Parker Society's edition, p. 254.

2 Ibid., p. 253.