Sketch of the Reformation in England

by John J. Blunt

To change in scenes, and show it in a play.”

Lastly, much of this coarseness and levity, which, according to our present notions, seems to border on the profane, was to be put to the account of the friars. They were the popular preachers of their day. Their Lent sermons attracted multitudes; and as their order had its very foundations laid in the taste of the many, its daily bread depending upon the mites which were cast into the treasury, and the amount of such contributions (individually so small) resulting altogether from their number, no pains were spared to minister to the vulgar appetite, on every occasion, such viands as were most palatable; and the subtleties of the school doctors and their operose learning gave way before the language, allusions, and illustrations of common life; and the homely story and the broad joke mingled themselves with subjects the most sacred. But whatever the cause might be, the style of the Roman Catholic preacher was extremely familiar; and this fashion, we have seen, had not entirely worn itself out in the first century after the Reformation.

But to return to the thread of our narrative. Out of the examinations and convictions that took place under the Six Articles one good at least issued—that Cranmer appears to have been hereby led to re-consider his opinion on transubstantiation. Hitherto it had been strictly conformable to the doctrine of the church of Rome: he now saw many intelligent men, powerful in the Scriptures, brought up as offenders against this cardinal dogma, and heard them vindicate their heterodoxy in a manner to make an impression upon a candid mind like his own; so that by the end of the reign of Henry, his belief on this article had undergone a change, and one of his earliest acts under Edward was to avow and proceed upon it.

It has been said, that from the date of the dissolution of the religious houses, the Reformation laboured in its progress. Even Henry seems to have been appalled at the violent reaction which followed, and to have held his hand. But those wise and good men whose object it had been all along to save what they could of the wreck, out of which to construct another ark, were still on the watch to promote the great cause in which they were embarked, both by permanent institutions and present instruction. Accordingly, whoever might be the advisers of the measure, out of the spoils of the monasteries six new bishoprics were now founded—those of Westminster (since suppressed), Chester, Gloucester, Peterborough, Oxford, and Bristol, together with deaneries and prebends respectively annexed, all slenderly endowed, and upon the whole a sad falling off from the splendid expectations which the king had originally held forth of eighteen new sees, together with a proportional number of suffragrans—expectations which the act of suppression had encouraged, and by which many were reconciled to the confiscation of the church property, as hoping that it was only to be fused and cast into a better mould. Its authors, however, “liked not that paying again; it was a double trouble.” Accordingly they compounded with the creditor, and the dividend (with the addition of funds for the endowment of some of the metropolitan hospitals, a few professorships in either university, and a college in Cambridge,) was what we have seen. The cathedrals fared better than the monasteries; having been hitherto in the hands of the regulars, they were now put upon the same footing as the new institutions of the like kind, and their revenues appropriated to the maintenance of secular dignitaries. Here, however, the plan proposed by Cranmer, owing probably to the opposition of the Roman Catholic party, was not adopted. In the settling down of the establishment once more, it was his wish that the cathedrals should be converted into theological colleges; that readers of divinity, of Hebrew, and of Greek should be attached to them; that a body of students should be maintained in them, out of whom the bishops might always find clerical recruits duly qualified for the pastoral office; that here, in short, should be realised a second time the institution which Samuel (the great reformer of his own church) established throughout all the land of Israel, “schools of the prophets,” and that thus might be filled up most effectually the gap which had been occasioned in the system of public instruction by the extinction of the religious orders. What might have been the effect of such a measure, which would have completed the Reformation in an important particular where it was left greatly defective, it may now be in vain to conjecture. Whether such establishments might not have contributed to stave off the crisis which was at hand from the puritans—a party then beginning to take a shape, and which owed its rapid development to the ineffectual opposition presented to it by a feeble and ignorant clergy—whether much schism and separation of a more recent date might not have been escaped by the aspect which these conspicuous pillars of orthodoxy would have presented in different districts, and to which public opinion might have looked, as to light-houses, for a guidance—whether, fertile as our church has been in great divines, the harvest might not have proved still more abundant when a regular theological education, comprising a sound knowledge of Hebrew, of the Fathers, of whatever else might conduce to the formation of the instructed scribe, fell systematically to the lot of all who were intended for the ministry;—whether a cheap education like this would not have afforded opportunities for youths of promise amongst the poorer classes to emerge from obscurity, and to enter a profession for which nature had fitted them, but accident had shut to the door; whether the church would not have been a gainer by the additional talent which would thus have been called forth in her service, when the “yeoman’s sons,” by whom, according to Latimer, “the faith in Christ had been hitherto maintained chiefly,” and “the husbandman’s children,” who are often endowed (as Cranmer strenuously argues upon this very subject) with singular gifts, would have sent in their contribution to the public stock;—and whether that same cause of attachment which bound the common people to the friars, and through them to the church itself, namely, the feeling that they had a personal interest and relationship in many of its ministers, would not have been hereby more effectually perpetuated:—or, on the other hand, whether such institutions might not have withdrawn the clergy too much from all secular intercourse, and prevented those connections of private friendship or private tuition from being formed, to which our schools and universities give occasion;—whether the alliance between church and state is not principally continued by such interlacements, and would not be greatly weakened by their disruption;—whether, again, the provision which our cathedrals (on their present footing) offer to the younger sons of powerful families (as the monasteries once did) does not pledge those families more deeply to the maintenance of the establishment;—whether the rewards, again, which they enable the church occasionally to confer on those who have done her good service as men of letters may not contribute to create a learned clergy, by furnishing the means of learned leisure—is altogether a problem which it is much more easy to state than to solve.

Nor had the Reformers only to watch their opportunity for the foundation of permanent institutions by which religion might be then and for ever promoted; but whenever a favourable moment was afforded for putting forth sound instruction to the people, they had to seize upon it. During the reign of Henry this could only be done by being instant in season, the season too being generally short, and always precarious; liable to be affected by the character of a marriage, and the duration of it; by a continental treaty; by a vote in parliament satisfactory or the contrary; in short by the humour of a prince at once in the highest degree capricious and resolute. Something, however, was done; and we shall now gather up a few dropped stitches which we have intentionally passed in this chapter, in order that our subject might meet with no interruption.

The vulgar work of destruction did not prevail; even under Henry, to the total exclusion of every other. In 1536, certain articles were set forth by the convocation, and with the king’s authority, which had for their title, “Articles devised by the Kinge’s Highness’ Majestie to stablyshe Christen quietnes,” &c., much diversity of opinion having sprung up in the country, as the preamble informs us, both upon the essentials and ceremonials of which they treat. They are ten in number, and rather indicate that a reformation was abroad, than that it was achieved. They allow the use of images, but endeavour to guard against their abuse; sanction prayers to the saints, but with a caution against superstition; defend the doctrine of purgatory, though with some hesitation, and with a positive rejection of pope’s pardons and masses of scala cœli; assert the sacraments of penance, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper; maintaining, with regard to the two latter, that infants dying before baptism perish everlastingly, and that the real body and blood of our Lord is present in the elements; but justification on the ground of merit they disclaim altogether, giving to Christ, and to Him only, the praise; and the faith of a Christian they consider to be comprehended in the canonical Scriptures, and the three creeds alone. It may be well to observe, inasmuch as the observation throws some light upon the spirit in which the formularies of our church were conceived, even at this remote period of the Reformation, that Melancthon is with reason believed to have had a voice in the Articles of 1536. So early as 1534 he was pressed to come to England and assist in completing the regeneration of the church; and invitations to the like effect continued to be forwarded to him. In 1535 we find him suggesting, by letter to Henry, the necessity of issuing a simple form of doctrine, such as might be agreed upon by learned men; and at the same time adding, that Dr. Barnes, whom he calls Antonius (afterwards the martyr but then Henry’s ambassador in Germany,) had been “very carefully discussing with him certain articles, to whom he had given his opinion upon them in writing.” Certain it is that in the very next year these of King Henry came out, and that the definition of justification contained in one of them is a translation from the “Loci Theologici” of this Lutheran reformer.[318]

Nor was this all: the measure which was dealt out to the degenerate Jews by Antiochus and his servants had, in a lower degree, long obtained amongst the ecclesiastical powers in England. “When they had rent in pieces the book of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire; and wheresoever was found with any the book of the testament ... the command was, that they should put him to death. Thus did they by their authority unto the Israelites every month, to as many as they found in their cities.”[319] But in the year 1537, the whole Bible translated into English by Tindall, Rogers, and perhaps by Coverdale[320] (the staple of all future editions,) bearing, however, at first the title of Matthew’s Bible, the better to recommend it, Tindall having recently died in the full odour of heresy, was published in England; and by the influence of Cranmer and Cromwell, the king’s license was procured that it should be freely bought and sold, and his command issued that a copy of it should be set up in every church. This was a day of rejoicing to the Archbishop Cranmer, greater, says he, “than had there been given him a thousand pounds.”[321] Nor to him only; the people, long thirsty for the word, now rushed to the waters of life and drank freely: whosoever had the means bought the volume; where the cost was too great for an individual, neighbours and fellow-apprentices would unite purses and buy in common; a man would be seen at the lower end of his church on a Sunday reading it aloud, whilst numbers flocked about him to listen and learn; and the one great topic of the time made its way even into taverns and alehouses, where it seems to have been often the subject of vehement and angry debate.[322]

The same year was distinguished by another work, calculated to advance the Reformation a step farther. “The Institution of a Christian Man,” or the Bishops’ Book, as it was called in popular language, from the quality of those who were chiefly concerned in composing it. It consists of an exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Pater-noster, the Ave Maria; to which are annexed the two articles on Justification and Purgatory (as they were published in 1536), the others having been inserted in the body of the work under their respective heads. The mere index of contents is enough to show that much still remained for the reformers to do; still much was herein done. The corruption of man was strongly asserted, his faculties as well as his appetites, his reason no less than his will,[323] contrary to the doctrine of the schools, which had limited its effects to the latter and lower half of our nature;[324] the virtues of redemption were consequently vindicated, and were placed in a position from which the dogma of merit had depressed them. The superstitious attention to trifles of ceremonial, whilst the great moral duties were disregarded, was rebuked—the dread, for instance, of eating an egg on Friday, as contrasted with the indifference felt for a breach of the most fundamental laws of charity.[325] The dishonest substitution, in sermons, of fables and inventions of men, for the Scriptures, was reproved, together with all wilful misrepresentation of the doctrines contained in the same.[326] On the whole, this was the culminating point of the Reformation, during the reign of Henry: henceforward, that is, from the year 1538, with few intermissions, it ostensibly, though perhaps not in reality, declined.[327]

In 1543 another work appeared, under the sanction of the king and the convocation:[328] it had for its title, “A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man,” and was vulgarly called “the King’s Book.”[329] It was, in fact, the Bishops’ Book revised, with some additional matter touching free will, good works, justification, predestination, purgatory—subjects which now began to be discussed with great warmth and difference of opinion. On comparing it with its prototype, it will be seen how far from progression the Reformation had been during the interval. It came out, indeed, whilst the act of the Six Articles was in force, and Gardiner in power. The wonder, therefore, is, rather that it says so much, than that it does not say more. The truth, however, seems to be, that it was an act of compromise; a boon granted to the reformers (rendered equivocal, indeed, by an infusion into it of the spirit of the Bishop of Winchester),[330] in consideration of the sacrifice that was about to be required of them; for the Bible in the vulgar tongue was now to be once more withdrawn. To those “whose office it was to teach other, the having, reading, and studying of Holy Scripture (it seems) was not only convenient, but also necessary; but for the other part of the church ordained to be taught, it ought to be deemed, certainly, that the reading of the Old and New Testament was not so necessary for all those folks.” For them it was enough to hear; and that nothing might be wanting to convince, Scripture itself was quoted in support of this sentiment—“Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it;” where it is insinuated, for it would have been too bad to affirm it, that the blessing attaches to those who hear, not to those who read.[331] But if we meet with a stumbling-block on the threshold of this new publication—for the passages alluded to are in the preface—on further acquaintance with it we shall find our suspicions, that Gardiner’s hand had been busy in it, strengthened. The depravity of our nature, so stoutly insisted upon in the Bishops’ Book, is nearly overlooked in the parallel passage of the King’s Book,[332] and the good offices of our Lord for the recovery of man are set forth in a much less lively manner in the latter than in the former place; where the one has enlarged upon the sufferings of Christ chiefly as propitiatory, the other, though not disclaiming this consideration, rather descants upon them as exemplary;[333] whilst the one declares the condemnation of every man to be sufficiently established, even though he were to be tried by the tenth commandment alone, the other evades the humiliating confession;[334] when the one denies even martyrdom to be a meritorious cause of salvation, and ascribes it altogether to the grace of God through Christ, the other gives a different turn to the commentary, and escapes the avowal:[335] in the one, the sacrament of matrimony is explained as that which God commands to some, leaves free to all; in the other, a clause is inserted, excepting from its provisions priests and others under vows of celibacy:[336] in the one, the exposition of the second commandment begins thus—“By these words we are utterly forbidden to make or to have any similitude or image, to the intent to bow down to it, or to worship it;” in the other—“By these words we be not forbidden to make or to have similitudes or images, but only we be forbidden to make or to have them to the intent to do godly honour unto them, as it appeareth in the xxvith chapter of Leviticus.”[337] It is true that the ulterior interpretation of the commandment in the two cases does not differ so materially as might be expected from the respective introductions; still the introductions are sufficient to show that the spirit in which the commentaries were made was not, in both instances, quite the same. Other examples of a similar declension in the principles of the Reformation might be gathered from a close comparison of these documents; at the same time, it would afford some minute indications that a better knowledge of the Scriptures had been meanwhile diffusing itself over the country, and that the six years privilege of consulting them had not been altogether lost. Thus, it may be remarked, that in the Bishops’ Book we read of “one Pontius Pilate being the chief judge in Jerusalem;”[338] whereas in the King’s Book the same individual is called “Pontius Pilate,” &c.,[339] as though he were a character with which the people were more familiar: again, in the former, the legend of binding “Christ fast to a pillar,” and so crowning and scourging him, is inserted in the details of his passion;[340] in the latter, this incident is omitted, and the scriptural account is strictly followed.[341] It is singular, too, that, in the one, the escape of “Lot and his three daughters” is spoken of; a mistake which the other corrects, his “two daughters” being here the reading.[342]

In addition to the scanty means of instruction in a better faith which were thus extorted from the king in his last years like drops of blood, he was prevailed upon by Cranmer to issue orders for the destruction of some favourite images, of which the superstitious abuse was the most notorious[343]—those of our Lady of Walsingham, our Lady of Ipswich, St. Thomas of Canterbury, and St. Ann of Buxton, being the chief;[344] to sanction the introduction into the churches of certain prayers or suffrages—the litany which we still use, except that some objectionable clauses have been since omitted, being of the number;[345] and to permit, moreover, the use of occasional prayers, for the supply of temporary wants, or the removal of temporary calamities—for rain or for fair weather—that thus the hearts of the congregation might be enlisted in their devotions, and the lukewarmness be counteracted, which was fast alienating them from public worship, conducted, as it was, in a language of which they were ignorant, though with errors of which they were aware.