[Footnote 42: It must not be forgotten, that, during the reign of Queen Anne, the body of the clergy were high-church men; but the bishops, who had chiefly been promoted since the Revolution, were Whiggish in politics, and moderate in their sentiments of church government. Hence the Upper and Lower Houses of Convocation rarely agreed in sentiment on affairs of church or state. [T. S.]
In the famous Concordate that was made between Francis I. of France and Pope Leo X., the Bishop tells us, that "the king and pope came to a bargain, by which they divided the liberties of the Gallican Church between them, and indeed quite enslaved it."[43] He intends, in the third part of his History which he is going to publish, "to open this whole matter to the world." In the mean time, he mentions some ill consequences to the Gallican Church from that Concordate, which are worthy to be observed; "The church of France became a slave, and this change in their constitution put an end not only to national, but even to provincial synods in that kingdom. The assemblies of the clergy there, meet now only to give subsidies," &c. and he says, "our nation may see by that proceeding, what it is to deliver up the essential liberties of a free constitution to a court." [44]
[Footnote 43: Page 53.]
[Footnote 44: Page 53.]
All I can gather from this matter is, that our King Henry made a better bargain than his contemporary Francis, who divided the liberties of the church between himself and the Pope, while the King of England seized them all to himself. But how comes he to number the want of synods in the Gallican church among the grievances of that Concordate, and as a mark of their slavery, since he reckons all Convocations of the Clergy in England to be useless and dangerous? Or what difference in point of liberty was there between the Gallican Church under Francis, and the English under Harry? For, the latter was as much a papist as the former, unless in the point of obedience to the see of Rome; and in every quality of a good man, or a good prince, (except personal courage wherein both were equal) the French monarch had the advantage by as many degrees as is possible for one man to have over another.
Henry VIII. had no manner of intention to change religion in his kingdom; he still continued to persecute and burn Protestants after he had cast off the Pope's supremacy, and I suppose this seizure of ecclesiastical revenues (which Francis never attempted) cannot be reckoned as a mark of the church's liberty. By the quotation the Bishop sets down to show the slavery of the French church, he represents it as a grievance, that "bishops are not now elected there as formerly, but wholly appointed by the prince; and that those made by the court have been ordinarily the chief advancers of schisms, heresies, and oppressions of the church." [45] He cites another passage from a Greek writer, and plainly insinuates, that it is justly applicable to Her Majesty's reign: "Princes choose such men to that charge [of a bishop] who may be their slaves, and in all things obsequious to what they prescribe; and may lie at their feet, and have not so much as a thought contrary to their commands." [46]
[Footnote 45: Page 55.]
[Footnote 46: Page 55.]
These are very singular passages for his Lordship to set down in order to show the dismal consequences of the French Concordate, by the slavery of the Gallican Church, compared with the freedom of ours. I shall not enter into a long dispute, whether it were better for religion that bishops should be chosen by the clergy, or people, or both together: I believe our author would give his vote for the second (which however would not have been of much advantage to himself, and some others that I could name). But I ask, Whether bishops are any more elected in England than in France? And the want of synods are in his own opinion rather a blessing than a grievance, unless he will affirm that more good can be expected from a popish synod than an English Convocation. Did the French clergy ever receive a greater blow to their liberties, than the submission made to Henry VIII., or so great a one as the seizure of their lands? The Reformation owed nothing to the good intentions of K. Henry: He was only an instrument of it, (as the logicians speak) by accident; nor doth he appear through his whole reign to have had any other views than those of gratifying his insatiable love of power, cruelty, oppression, and other irregular appetites. But this kingdom as well as many other parts of Europe, was, at that time, generally weary of the corruptions and impositions of the Roman court and church, and disposed to receive those doctrines which Luther and his followers had universally spread. Cranmer the archbishop, Cromwell, and others of the court, did secretly embrace the Reformation; and the King's abrogating the Pope's supremacy, made the people in general run into the new doctrines with greater freedom, because they hoped to be supported in it by the authority and example of their prince, who disappointed them so far that he made no other step than rejecting the Pope's supremacy as a clog upon his own power and passions, but retained every corruption beside, and became a cruel persecutor, as well of those who denied his own supremacy, as of all others who professed any Protestant doctrine. Neither hath any thing disgusted me more in reading the histories of those times, than to see one of the worst princes of any age or country, celebrated as an instrument in that glorious work of the Reformation.
The Bishop having gone over all the matters that properly fall within his Introduction, proceeds to expostulate with several sorts of people;[47] First with Protestants who are no Christians, such as atheists, deists, freethinkers, and the like enemies to Christianity. But these he treats with the tenderness of a friend, because they are all of them of sound Whig principles in church and state. However, to do him justice, he lightly touches some old topics for the truth of the Gospel; and concludes by wishing that the freethinkers would consider well, if (Anglice, whether) they think it possible to bring a nation to be without any religion at all, and what the consequences of that may prove; [48] and in case they allow the negative, he gives it clearly for Christianity.