indeed made to obviate these evils; but who shall be bold enough to presume to set limits to violence, when the first principles of justice are destroyed? Or who shall check the rapacity of plunder, when the rights of property are systematically disregarded? of Henry, and how much the clergy had made themselves the objects of hatred among the people by their vices, their superstition, and their tyrannical persecutions. As it was, the change produced a most formidable rebellion; and if the people could have foreseen the 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 as well as the fabric, suffered in the forced to part with their ill-acquired storm; the libraries were left to the wealth; and it is an observation worthy ignorant possessor of the soil, or pilof attention, that few families really laged for the sake of the parchment profited by church lands. This effect and paper which they contained; so need not be attributed to the immediate that the loss to English history is bevengeance 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. § 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 with waste and destruction. The tenants of the monastery were in many cases deprived of their leases, and the rents forced up to an unprecedented height. Those persons who possessed reserved rents on the lands of religious houses 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. yond 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 to a miserable state of precarious existence, and greatly promoted vagrancy and disorders, for which succeeding legislators in vain sought a remedy, till the establishment of the poor laws, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, connected the prosperity of the lower orders 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 moment when the diffusion of knowledge had opened every avenue for adventure. We may conceive, then, a forcible transfer of property, not relatively less than what the church at present possess in this kingdom, at a period when the employment of resources was little understood, and when § 258. We may easily conceive that this must have been the case, when we consider the amount of the sum transferred, which, according to Speed, was not less than an income of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, scarcely if at all below that of all the other church property. In our own days we have experienced the stagnation and distress the religion, with the rites of which produced by the change from a state of war to peace, and an alteration in 1 There is much difficulty in forming an accu- | rate estimate of the value of the property so transferred; but in the absence of substantial in formation, some readers may be pleased with having even an approximation to the real sum these establishments were connected, was one which occupied many indi placed before them, and will excuse the author for presenting such data as are within his reach, defective as they are. Speed says Henry transferred 161,1097. 98. 74d. to temporal uses. 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, (Canterbury, Durham, Ely, Gloucester, Westminster, Winchester, Worcester,) the income of which amounted to Reducing the sum total of the suppressed monasteries to Subsequent foundations: Five bishoprics: Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Oxford, £1,858 11 6 £ s. d. 171,312 4 3 13,826 8 73 157,483 15 7 Westminster, at the same average 371 14 3 Sixteen chapters (the stalls) including Christ Church, 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 (The one-eighth is taken as an approximation to the present proportion.) Mr. Nasmith, in this edition of Tanner's Notitia, 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 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 24 2,947 15 41 186 20 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 such a project as the following, we 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. 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 259. The ultimate result was un- before any tenure at present on record. questionably beneficial; for it turned I imagine that if this plan were thus all this wealth from a channel in which offered to our notice, no one would it was giving birth to little activity, either doubt of its utility or wisdom; and if of mind or body, into the hands of pri- in practice it be found less pure than it vate possessors, who are of all people seems in theory, if the least promising the most likely to promote the pros- of his sons be selected by the lay properity of the community. It is indeed prietor to hold the family living, if large probable that a larger portion might preferments be given to unworthy perhave been employed with advantage sons, it should not be forgotten, that on hospitals and places of education, directly or indirectly the laity are the but that this sum ought not to have patrons of the great mass of preferment been considerable; and there can be in this country. Nor ought we to overlittle doubt that England would have look this fact also, that a large portion been richer, had the impropriations of the livings of England are inadebeen restored. I mention this, be-quate to repay the actual expenses of cause I believe that the value of a pro- such a liberal education as is geneper provision for the parochial clergy rally bestowed on the clergy of this 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 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 1 The word right is used in its extreme sense. numerous assaults, in a country where 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 property, (as in cases of treason;) it occasionally with toleration, which is the glory of forces him to sell it. The question in reality is our church, or with charity, which chaone of policy; but sound policy and justice are racterizes our religion, to pray, that the the same thing. It is in this sense that the parliament have the disposal of the revenues of 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., 1543. 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 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 1 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 our church. In the exposition of the Henry VIII. 8vo. Oxford, 1825. In these ob-honour to be paid to saints, the Chrisservations, No. II. is called the Institution, III. tian is, in the Articles, 1536, directed to the Erudition. In the preface to the Three Pri-address them, as advancers of our praymers, 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. ers to Christ, the only Mediator; whereas what is said in the latter tracts places the intercession of the saints in heaven1 2 Probably, among those who had access to the Scriptures, the opinions of the reformed on the same ground as that of the michurch were gaining ground. The king had nisters of Christ's church on earth.5 made a great and hasty political step, which was likely to introduce doctrinal changes, to which he that any use was ever made of this, (Strype inhad no inclination, and therefore retraced those deed supposes, i. 546, that it was quashed by steps which he had apparently taken. (Burnet, i. Cranmer,) unless it served to direct those who 274, 286, and Rec. No. 21, fol.) In 1540, be- made some alteration in the service book, "Portween the dates of these publications, two com- tiforium secundum usum Sarum noviter impresmissions had been appointed, one for the exami-sum, et a plurimis purgatum mendis. In quo nation of the doctrines; the other, of the ceremonies 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 Ordination, and the difference between Bishops and Priests; Confession and Excommunication, and Extreme Unction. These contain a fund of information. The other committee drew up a Rationale 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 nomen Romano, Pontifici ascriptum omittitur, una cum aliis, quæ christianissimo nostri Regis Statuto repugnant. Excussum Londini per Edvardum Whytchurch, 1541." 3 Formularies, 14. 4 Ibid. 70, 237. 5 With regard to Good Works, there is perhaps a slight alteration, (99, 372,) in which the Erudition is nearer to the church of England; and an expression of the "merits" of the saints being 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. The order which it will be desirable to adopt in the following investigation is probably that of the Thirty-nine Articles of our own church; for the student in divinity will thus more readily discover the points in which we disagree. The tract itself is arranged on a totally different principle. It explains successively the Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria, and finishes with the exposition of certain articles on Freewill, Justification, Good Works, and the praying for souls departed. The elementary nature of the subject-matter explained prevents, on many points, any great difference of opinion; and the difficulty which necessarily exists in marking the shades of progressive alterations must be pleaded in excuse, if in any particulars these distinctions should appear to be incorrectly laid down in the following pages.1 $273. I.-V. In the first division of the Thirty-nine Articles, there is of course no material difference, as the church of Rome holds the doctrine of the Trinity in common with the church of England. § 274. VI. VIII. In the second division, wherein the basis or groundwork of our faith is marked out, the Erudition coincides, in fact, to a great degree, with the church of England, though in principle it differs from it most widely. As a standard of faith, it admits the whole body and canon of the Bible," (i. e., the Apocrypha and all,) the three Creeds, the decisions of the four first 260,) and the unlearned are in the Erudition directed to say the Pater-noster in their mother tongue, (335.) There is also an excellent tract on Freewill in the Erudition, (359,) which does not exist in the other; as to the particulars wherein the Erudition had gone back towards the see of Rome, see $283. 1 The doctrines of the church of England are not here stated, since they may be found by consulting the Thirty-nine Articles, which, as they are printed in the Prayer Book, must be within the reach of every reader. 2 Form. 5, 61, 227. The authority of the moral law is established in the adoption of the Decalogue as a rule of conduct; and in the rejection of the ceremonial ritual, all Christian churches agree. There is, however, one observation which is worthy of attention, in which it is asserted that the fourth commandment does not now pertain to Christians, though Christians are bound by it to the observance of the Sunday, and other holydays appointed by the church." deed very clear what is meant to be conveyed by this exposition; for if it only refers to the change in the day of the week, the alteration has been admitted since the times of the apostles, but as it now stands, it might certainly be extended to a length which few Christians would be willing to admit. It is not in § 275. IX.-XVIII. In the third class of articles, in which points of faith referring to individual Christians are treated of, it will be necessary to examine each separate article. IX. The doctrine of original sin is fully admitted, though the exposition of it, in the Institution, is much more precise and copious, in declaring the corruption of man's heart always abiding in him. X. Freewills is fully explained in an excellent little tract at the end of the Erudition, in which the positions correspond with our present article: I cannot help recommending it to the attention of my readers, particularly the concluding paragraph: "All men be also to be monished, and chiefly preachers, that in this high matter, they, looking on both sides, so attemper and moderate themselves, that neither they so preach |