of Henry, and how much the clergy had indeed made to obviate these evils; but made themselves the objects of hatred who shall be bold enough to presume among the people by their vices, their to set limits to violence, when the first superstition, and their tyrannical per- principles of justice are destroyed? Or secutions. As it was, the change pro- who shall check the rapacity of plunder, duced a most formidable rebellion; and when the rights of property are systemaif the people could have foreseen the tically disregarded? extent of the evil which this transfer of §256. Barbarism seems to have joined property was likely to produce, they hand in hand with avarice in the work would have resisted any such alteration; of destruction; the movable parts of but fortunately they did not: for, had religious houses were quickly carried their resistance been effectual, the coun- off and sold, and the dismantled buildtry would in all probability have been ing left to the pitiless ravages of time, injured as to its true interests. Those a lasting monument of how much the who had become thus easily possessed Reformation cost us! The contents, of property were in the course of time forced to part with their ill-acquired wealth; and it is an observation worthy of attention, that few families really profited by church lands. This effect need not be attributed to the immediate vengeance of Heaven, (for the land of laymen may be as truly dedicated to God as that of the church,) but arose from this principle, that the rapacious are generally prodigal ; and that however property may be divided for a time, the industrious and virtuous will sooner or later become its possessors. And thus, before the expiration of many years, the spoils of the church were thrown into those hands in which they would produce the greatest good to the body politic.

as well as the fabric, suffered in the storm; the libraries were left to the ignorant possessor of the soil, or pillaged for the sake of the parchment and paper which they contained; so that the loss to English history is beyond conception; for the monks were the only historians of the times, and in almost every monastery a record was kept, not only of the transactions of the society, but the political events of the period were regularly inserted; and when we have passed beyond, comparatively speaking, modern times, the monastic chronicles form the only documents for history.

§ 257. The improvements in agriculture did not of course keep pace with the alteration in the state of property, and the holders of large estates, in order to obtain the highest rents, found it necessary to convert much of their land into pasture. This circumstance reduced the ancient cultivators of the soil

§ 255. But the immediate effect was not at all that of promoting the welfare of this land. It was not the quiet transfer of wealth, accompanied by activity and prudence; but the forced dissolution of the right of property, and attended to a miserable state of precarious existwith waste and destruction. The tenants ence, and greatly promoted vagrancy of the monastery were in many cases and disorders, for which succeeding deprived of their leases, and the rents legislators in vain sought a remedy, till forced up to an unprecedented height. the establishment of the poor laws, in Those persons who possessed reserved the reign of Queen Elizabeth, connectrents on the lands of religious houses ed the prosperity of the lower orders found such difficulty in obtaining their rights, when the property fell into the hands of the king, or a powerful subject, that they were often obliged to relinquish the claim; and where, as was frequently the case, the family of the founder had retained legally, or by tacit consent, the right of presentation to the preferments, the new owners of the soil deprived them of their privilege. Attempts were

1 See Spelman on Sacrilege.

with the interests of the landlord. By the dispersion of so much property, many individuals were forced to earn their bread by labour, who would otherwise have wasted their lives in sloth and inactivity; but the mass of persons who were thus driven to exertion were not provided by education for cultivating any higher branches of even manual labour, and the nation found itself over

2 Fuller, 334.

burdened with agricultural workmen at a time when the population did not amount to one-half its present numbers.

the value of money, together with the want of employment which such causes have occasioned, and this accompanied with no violence, and taking place at a § 258. We may easily conceive that moment when the diffusion of knowthis must have been the case, when we ledge had opened every avenue for consider the amount of the sum trans- adventure. We may conceive, then, ferred, which, according to Speed, was a forcible transfer of property, not renot less than an income of one hundred latively less than what the church at and fifty thousand pounds, scarcely if present possess in this kingdom, at a at all below that of all the other church period when the employment of reproperty. In our own days we have sources was little understood, and when experienced the stagnation and distress the religion, with the rites of which produced by the change from a state these establishments were connected, of war to peace, and an alteration in was one which occupied many indiThere is much difficulty in forming an accu- | placed before them, and will excuse the author rate estimate of the value of the property so for presenting such data as are within his reach, transferred; but in the absence of substantial in- defective as they are. Speed says Henry transformation, some readers may be pleased with ferred 161,1097. 98. 74d. to temporal uses. having even an approximation to the real sum

According to his abstract of dissolved monasteries, they amounted to
1,100 in number, and their value was, per annum,

Among these, I believe that seven cathedrals are enumerated, (Canter-
bury, Durham, Ely, Gloucester, Westminster, Winchester, Wor-
cester,) the income of which amounted to

£ 8. d. 171,312 4 3

13,826 8 7

157,483 157

5,942 8 2

8,172 13 11

149,311 1 8

Leaving, independent of Trinity Cambridge, and the London hospitals
The approximation to the value of the other church preferment, at the same date, is as follows:-
8331 benefices (in Speed)

Bishoprics and stalls (at one-eighth of this)

£108,182 6 3 13,522 15 0 £121,705 1 3

(The one-eighth is taken as an approximation to the present proportion.)

Mr. Nasmith, in this edition of Tanner's No- | titia, has given us from the Liber Regis, and other sources, (Lingard, vi. Note E. p. 503,) as accurate an account as can be expected of the annual reve

No. of houses.

Orders.
Benedictines,
Cluniacs,

nue of all the monastic houses. The result is the following, (N. B. This must regard the larger monasteries only.)

Revenue.

£65,877 14 0 4,972 9 21

2,947 15 4

18,691 12 6

Cistercians,
Austins,

Premonstratensians,

Gilbertins,

Fontevraud nuns,

Bridgettines,

186
20

9

Carthusians,

101

173

32

25

3

3

Minoresses,

1

Bonhommes,

This result, drawn from sources totally different | no very considerable error has been committed in from the former, is sufficiently near to show that the investigation.

viduals in its services, and those of every different rank in society, and we shall be able to form some idea of the evils and difficulties with which this change was for the time attended. The acts by which it was brought about were undoubtedly legal, for they were sanctioned by the parliament; and the supreme body in a kingdom must have the right to dispose of the property of any of its members; but the dissolution was carried on in opposition to every principle of sound policy, with a spirit which nothing can justify, and produced effects at the moment highly prejudicial to society.

such a project as the following, we should probably hardly imagine anything more perfect: that in every small district of the country a certain quantity of property was set apart, in order that some individual of the community, selected from any class, might be educated in a superior manner, and appointed to the superintendence of the spiritual and temporal wants of this little community; that he was furnished with a residence among them, and with the means of relieving the poor; and that all this was provided by a grant from the landed property of the country, made so long ago that it existed before any tenure at present on record. I imagine that if this plan were thus offered to our notice, no one would doubt of its utility or wisdom; and if in practice it be found less pure than it seems in theory, if the least promising of his sons be selected by the lay proprietor to hold the family living, if large preferments be given to unworthy persons, it should not be forgotten, that directly or indirectly the laity are the patrons of the great mass of preferment in this country. Nor ought we to overlook this fact also, that a large portion of the livings of England are inadequate to repay the actual expenses of such a liberal education as is generally bestowed on the clergy of this

§ 259. The ultimate result was unquestionably beneficial; for it turned all this wealth from a channel in which it was giving birth to little activity, either of mind or body, into the hands of private possessors, who are of all people the most likely to promote the prosperity of the community. It is indeed probable that a larger portion might have been employed with advantage on hospitals and places of education, but that this sum ought not to have been considerable; and there can be little doubt that England would have been richer, had the impropriations been restored. I mention this, because I believe that the value of a proper provision for the parochial clergy is often not understood, and often mis-land. represented. Had we never heard of such an establishment, and did we first meet in some Utopian scheme with

perty, (as in cases of treason;) it occasionally forces him to sell it. The question in reality is one of policy; but sound policy and justice are the same thing. It is in this sense that the parliament have the disposal of the revenues of the

It would be absurd to expect that a body possessed of such power and wealth as has been granted to ecclesiastical persons should be free from numerous assaults, in a country where

The word right is used in its extreme sense. They have a power which no authority in Eng-free discussion on every subject is alland can contradict. The law does, under certain lowed; but it cannot be inconsistent circumstances, deprive an individual of his prowith toleration, which is the glory of our church, or with charity, which characterizes our religion, to pray, that the attacks of our enemies may induce the church to remedy the evils which exist among us; and that those who are ignorant enough to revile our establishment, may be convinced of their error by the benefits which they shall receive from their spiritual guides.

church.

2 See some good observations on the ill effects

of impropriations in Speaker William's speech, January 15th, 1563; (Strype's Ann. i. 437;) and in the rough draft of a reformation in ecclesiastical law, under the head of Better Providing for the Poorer Clergy, impropriations are said to be radix omnium malorum. (Strype's Ann. i. 479.)

APPENDIX B. TO CHAP. V.

STATE OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS IN THE CHURCH AT THE END OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII.

271. Three works published by authority. 272. The arrangement of the Thirty-nine Articles followed. 273. The Trinity. 274. Standard of faith. 275, 276. Points of faith referring to individual Christians. 277. Points referring to the church. 278. The Seven Sacraments. 279. Penance; Orders; Confirmation; Extreme Unction. 280. Lord's Supper; Matrimony. 281. Traditions; supremacy of the king. 282. Observations. 283. Points still wanting reformation.

$271. THIS abstract is made from works put forth by authority, which are in number three:

I. Articles devised by the Kinges Highnes Majestie, to stablyshe Christen quietnes and unitie amonge us-1536.

II. The Institution of a Christian Man, &c., 1537. This was dedicated by the bishops to the king, and is therefore called the Bishops' Book.

III. A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, set forth by the King's Majesty of England, &c., 1513. This was addressed by the king to his people, and is therefore called the King's Book.1

It seems to be the generally received opinion, that the doctrines of the

The three have been of late printed in one volume, under the direction of the late bishop of Oxford, (Dr. Lloyd,) at the university press, and are thus placed within the reach of every student in theology. They are entitled, Formularies of Faith, put forth by authority during the reign of Henry VIII. 8vo. Oxford, 1825. In these observations, No. II. is called the Institution, III. the Erudition. In the preface to the Three Primers, printed 1834, by my late friend Dr. Burton, Reg. Prof. of Div. Oxf., he shows that many parts of William Marshall's Primer, 1535, have been introduced into the Institution, No. II.

church of England were retrograde during the period in which these treatises were written; so that we might expect to find the last of the three the least distant from the tenets of the Roman church; and these expectations upon examination are in some degree realized. With regard to the two latter works, which in all material points are the same, it will be useful to specify the most marked differences as we proceed in discussing the general contents of the latter, which was the standard of faith when Henry died.

§ 272. The Articles themselves are in a great measure inserted verbatim, or nearly so, into the Institution, and from thence copied into the Erudition; but in one case, in which a material alteration is observable, it consists of the introduction of opinions which are less at variance with the doctrines of our church. In the exposition of the honour to be paid to saints, the Christian is, in the Articles, 1536, directed to address them, as advancers of our prayers to Christ, the only Mediator; whereas what is said in the latter tracts places the intercession of the saints in heaven' on the same ground as that of the ministers of Christ's church on earth.5 that any use was ever made of this, (Strype indeed supposes, i. 546, that it was quashed by Cranmer,) unless it served to direct those who made some alteration in the service book, "Portiforium secundum usum Sarum noviter impressum, et a plurimis purgatum mendis. In quo nomen Romano, Pontifici ascriptum omittitur, una cum aliis, quæ christianissimo nostri Regis Statuto repugnant. Exeussum Londini per Edvardum Whytchurch, 1541."

2 Probably, among those who had access to the Scriptures, the opinions of the reformed church were gaining ground. The king had made a great and hasty political step, which was likely to introduce doctrinal changes, to which he had no inclination, and therefore retraced those steps which he had apparently taken. (Burnet, i. 274, 286, and Rec. No. 21, fol.) In 1540, between the dates of these publications, two commissions had been appointed, one for the examination of the doctrines; the other, of the cere monies of the church. The first sent in numerous answers concerning the sacraments, their number, nature, and efficacy; Confirmation, and the use of Chrism therein; the nature of Ordina4 Ibid. 70, 237. tion, and the difference between Bishops and 5 With regard to Good Works, there is perhaps Priests; Confession and Excommunication, and a slight alteration, (99, 372.) in which the ErudiExtreme Unction. These contain a fund of in- tion is nearer to the church of England; and an formation. The other committee drew up a Ra-expression of the "merits" of the saints being tionale of the Church Service, (Strype, E. M. ii. Rec. No. 109.) a sort of Explanation of the meaning of the Ceremonies used in the church of Rome, (Collier, ii. 191 ;) but it does not appear

3 Formularies, 14.

conveyed to the whole body of Christians, in the Institution, (53 and 58,) which is left out in the Erudition. The power of priestly absolution is more strongly marked in the Institution, (98,

The very dates, indeed, would lead councils, and directs that the interpretaus to expect no great difference between tion of the word of God shall take the two first works, though the change place according to the meaning of the of opinion indicated by the passing of words of Scripture, and as the holy the act of the Six Articles, in 1539, and approved doctors of the church do might direct us to look for it between agreeably entreat and defend. The the Institution and the Erudition. church of England neglects not the assistance of the holy fathers in the interpretation of Scripture: it merely rejects the authority of such interpretation, and receives the Creeds, not upon tradition, but because they do agree with the Bible.