Was burnt up.—Hindered from standing alone, and absorbed into the Lutheran system.
And all green grass.—Natural men of independent thought.—Isa. 40:6, 7.
Was burnt up.—Similarly absorbed into the Lutheran system, a welcome substitute for papacy's intolerable yoke.
8:8. And the second [angel] sounded.—The Anglican church movement began.
And as it were a great mountain.—England in the time of Henry VIII. Mountains symbolize kingdoms.—Dan. 2:35; Jer. 51:25.
Burning with fire.—Aflame with another great movement destructive to the papacy.
Was cast into the sea.—Was suddenly thrown into a condition of isolation from the papacy—no longer placed under religious restraint to it.
And the third part of the sea.—The English part.
Became blood.—The much-married Henry VIII., founder [pg 149] of the Anglican Church, and the second great sect-founder, has some slight blemishes on his escutcheon also. “Henry VIII. himself stoutly maintained the headship of the pope, and as is well known, after examining the arguments of Luther, published his defence of the Seven Sacraments in 1521, which won for him from the pope the glorious title of ‘Defender of the faith.’ By 1527 the king had become hopeless of having a male heir by Catherine. He was tired of her, and in love with the black-eyed Anne Boleyn, who refused to be his mistress. The king's agents secured the opinion of a number of prominent universities that his marriage was void, and an assembly of notables, which he summoned in June 1530, warned the pope of the dangers involved in leaving the royal succession in uncertainty. Henry's next move was to bring a charge against the clergy, accusing them of having violated the ancient laws of praemunire in submitting to the authority of papal legates (although he himself had ratified the appointment of Wolsey as legate a latere). The clergy of the province of Canterbury were fined 100,000 pounds and compelled to declare the king their singular protector and only supreme lord, and, as far as that is permitted by the law of Christ, the supreme head of the Church and of the clergy.
“The following year, 1532, an obedient parliament presented a petition to the king (which had been most carefully elaborated by the king's own advisers) containing twelve charges against the bishops. For the remedy of these abuses parliament turned to the king ‘in whom and by whom the only and sole redress, reformation and remedy herein absolutely rests and remains.’ [These charges were answered by the clergy, but the answer did not suit the king so on the 15th of May, 1532.] The king's most humble subjects, daily orators and bedesmen of the clergy of England, in view of his goodness and fervent Christian zeal and his learning far exceeding that of all other kings that they have read of, agree never to assemble in convocation except at the king's summons, and to enact and promulgate no constitution or ordinances except they receive the royal assent and authority. [Then Henry divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn and the English Reformation was officially launched.] The king had now clarified the ancient laws of the realm to his satisfaction, and could proceed to seize such portions of the Church's possessions as he deemed superfluous for the maintenance of religion. [On the 30th of July, 1540, three Lutheran clergymen were burned and three Roman Catholics beheaded, the latter for denying the king's spiritual supremacy. The king's ardent desires that diversities of minds and opinions [pg 150] should be done away with and unity be ‘charitably established’ was further promoted by publishing in 1543 A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, set forth by the King's Majesty of England, in which the tenets of mediaeval theology, except for denial of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome and the unmistakable assertion of the supremacy of the king, were once more restated. The First Prayer Book of Edward VI was issued in 1549 and was followed in 1552 by the Second Prayer Book and] ‘The foundations of the Anglican church were laid.’—Brit.