Book VII

An Account of the Variations and Reformation of England under Henry VIII., from the year 1529 to 1547 ; and under Edward VI., from 1547 to 1553; with the subsequent history of Cranmer, until his death, in 1556.

brief Summary. — The English Reformation condemned even from Mr. Burnet's own history. — The divorce of Henry VIII. — His furious transports against the Holy See. — His Ecclesiastical Supremacy. — The grounds of, and consequences from, this doctrine. — This point excepted, the Catholic Faith remains whole and entire. — Henry's decisions in matters of Faith. — His Six Articles. — The History of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, author of the English Reformation. — His base compliances, corruption, and hypocrisy. — His shameful sentiments concerning the Hierarchy. — The conduct of the pretended Reformers, and in particular of Thomas Cromwell, the King's Vicar-General and Vicegerent in Spirituals. — That of Anne Boleyn, against whom the divine vengeance declares itself. — The prodigious blindness of Henry through the whole course of his life. — His death. — The minority of Edward VI., his son. — Henry's decrees reversed. — The King's Ecclesiastical Supremacy alone remains in force. — It is carried to such a pitch, that even Protestants are ashamed of it. — Cranmer's Reformation built on this principle. — The King looked upon as judge in matters of Faith. — Antiquity despised. — Continual Variations. — The death of Edward VI. — Cranmer's treason, in conjunction with others, against Queen Mary, the late King's sister. — The Catholic Religion re-established. — Cranmer's ignominious end. — Some particular remarks on Mr. Burnet's History and the English Reformation.

1. — The death of Henry VIII., King of England. — On this occasion the account of the beginning and progress of the English Reformation is entered upon. — 1547.

The death of Luther was soon followed by another death, which caused great changes in religion. It was that of

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 253

Henry VIII., who, after giving such great hopes in the first years of his reign, made so bad use of the rare qualifications of body and mind, with which the divine bounty had so liberally endowed him. Nobody is ignorant of the irregularities of this Prince, nor of the blindness he fell into by his unhappy amours, nor how much blood he shed after he had given himself up to them, nor of the dreadful consequences of his marriages, fatal, almost every one of them, to those he took to hi3 bed. Nor is it less known on what occasion he, once a very Catholic Prince, made himself the author of a new sect, equally detested by Catholics, Lutherans, and Sacramentarians. The Holy See having condemned the divorce, which, after a marriage of five-and- twenty years, he had made from Catherine of Arragon, relict of his brother Arthur, and the marriage he had contracted with Anne Boleyn, he not only rose up against the authority of that See which condemned him, but also, by an attempt till then unheard of among Christians, declared himself head of the Church of England, as well in spirituals as temporals; and from thence begins the English Reformation, whereof so ingenious a history has been given us of late years, and, at the same time, so full of rancour against the Catholic Church.

2. — The foundation here built upon is Mr. Burnet's own history. — The Doctor's pompous words concerning the English Reformation.

The author of it, Dr. Gilbert Burnet, upbraids us in his very Preface, and through the entire progress of his History, with having derived great advantage from the conduct of Henry VIII. and that of England's first Reformers. Above all, he complains of Sanders, a Catholic historian, whom he accuses of having invented heinous facts to make the English Reformation odious. These complaints are then turned against us and the Catholic doctrine. " A religion (says he) whose foundation was laid in falsehood, and superstructure raised on imposition, may be supported by the same means which gave it birth¹." He even carries this outrageous invective to a higher pitch : " Sanders's book might well serve the ends of that Church, which has, all along, raised its greatness by public cheats and forgeries." The colours he paints us in are not more black than the ornaments he decks his own Church with are pompous and glittering. " The Reformation (proceeds he) was a work of light, and needs not the aid of darkness to give it a lustre. A full and distinct narrative of what was then done will be its apology as well as its history.'" These are fine words, nor could more magnificent ones be used, if, in the changes that happened in England, he had been to shew us even the same sanctity which shone forth at the first birth of Christianity. Since he desires it, let us then consider this history, which, by its naked simplicity alone, justifies the Reformation. We stand not in need of a Sanders ; Mr. Burnet will suffice to let us clearly see what was this work of light, and the bare series of facts related by this artful defender of the English Reformation is enough to give us a just idea of it. And if England there finds the sensible marks of that blindness, which God sometimes diffuses over kings and nations, let her not blame me, who do but follow a history which the whole body of the Parliament has honoured with so authentic an approbation² ; but let her adore the hidden judgments of God, who has permitted the errors of this learned and illustrious nation to rise to so visible a height, only to the end she might, by this means, the more easily know herself.

3. — The first fact avowed that the Reformation began by a man equally rejected by all parties.

The first important fact I observe in Mr. Burnet, is what he advances even in his preface, and continues to give proofs of through the whole body of his book : that " when Henry VIII. began the Reformation, the King's design seemed to have been in the whole progress of these changes to terrify the Court of Rome, and force the Pope into a compliance with what he desired ; for, in his heart, he continued addicted to the most extravagant opinions of that Church, such as Transubstantiation and the other corruptions in the Sacrifice of the Mass, so that he rather died in this communion than in that of the Protestants." Whatsoever Mr. Burnet may please to say of this matter, we shall not admit this Prince, whom he seems to offer us, a member of our communion ; and since he casts him off from his own, the immediate result of this fact is, that the author of the English Reformation, and who, in reality, laid the true foundation of it, in the hatred he excited against the Pope and Church of Rome, is one equally rejected and excommunicated by all sides.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 255

4. — What was the faith of Henry VIII., author of the Reformation.

What in this place mostly deserves our observation is, that this prince was not content with believing in his heart, and outwardly professing all those points of faith, which Mr. Burnet calls the greatest and most extravagant of our corruptions, but even by law, in his new capacity of supreme head, under Jesus Christ, of the Church of England, made them that church's articles of faith. He caused them to be approved by all the Bishops and all his Parliaments, that is, by all the tribunals in which the highest degree of ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England resides at this day, he made them be subscribed, and put in practice throughout all England, and in particular by the Cromwells, the Cranmers, and all the rest of Mr. Burnet's heroes, who, whether Lutherans or Zuinglians in their hearts, and zealous for setting up the new Gospel, went nevertheless, as usual, to Mass, as to the public worship which was paid to God, or said it themselves ; in a word, practised all the rest of the doctrine and service received in the Church in spite of their religion and consciences.

5. — What were the instruments made use of by Henry VIII. in the Reformation. — Cromwell, his Vicegerent in spirituals.

Thomas Cromwell was the person the King appointed his Vicar- General in spirituals in 1533, immediately after his condemnation ; and whom, in 1536, as Supreme Head of the Church, he made his Vicegerent, whereby he placed him at the head of all ecclesiastical affairs, and of the whole sacred order, though he were no more than a layman, and always remained such³. Till then that title had not been met with on the list of the Crown-officers of England, nor among the employments recorded in the review of the empire) , nor in. any Christian kingdom whatsoever ; and it was Henry VIII. that first shewed England, and the Christian world, a Lord Vicegerent and a King's Vicar-General in spirituals.

6. — Thomas Cranmer is Mr. Burnet's hero.

Cromwell's intimate friend and chief manager of the English Reformation was Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canter- bury. This is Mr. Burnet's great hero. He abandons Henry VIII., whose scandals and cruelties are too flagrant. But he was well aware, should he do the same by Cranmer, whom he looks upon to be the author of the Reformation, this would be giving us at once a too bad idea of this whole work. Therefore he enlarges much in the praises of this prelate ; and not content with admiring everywhere his moderation, his piety, and prudence, he sticks not at making him as irreprehensible, or even more so, than St. Athanasius and St. Cyril; and of such extraordinary worth, that "we shall find as eminent virtues, and as few faults in him, as in any prelate that has been in the Christian Church for many ages⁴. "

7. — Mr. Burnet's heroes are not always, even in his judgment, the best of men. — What he relates of Montluc, Bishop of Valence.

The truth is, we must not rely much on the praises Mr. Burnet gives the heroes of the Reformation: witness those he bestowed on Montluc, Bishop of Valence. " He was," says he, " one of the wisest ministers of his time, and always for moderate councils in matters of religion, which made him be sometimes suspected of heresy. And, indeed, the whole sequel of his life declared him to be one of the greatest men of that age : only being so long, and so firmly, united to the interest of Queen Catherine Medicis, takes off a great deal of the high character which the rest of his life has given of himf." The crime certainly was not very great, since he owed all to this Princess, who besides was his Queen, the wife and mother of his Kings, and always in union with them ; so that this Prelate, against whom this only exception could be made of being faithful to his benefactress, in Mr. Burnet's judgment, must have been the most irreproachable of all his contemporaries. But the eulogiums the Reformers bestow on the great men of their sect are not to be taken literally. The same Mr. Burnet, in the very book wherein he so highly extols Montluc, speaks thus of him — "This Bishop was eminent ; but he had his faults." After what he has said of him, these faults, we ought to think, will be but trifling; but read to the end, and you will find they consisted in this, that " he had endeavoured to corrupt the daughter of an Irish gentleman who had received him into his house ; and had with him an English mistress whom he kept,j" who having

X 2d Part. l.i. p. 204.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 257 drunk, without reflection, the precious balm which Solyman the Magnificent had made this Prelate a present of, " he fell into such a rage, that all the house was disturbed with it, whereby he discovered both his lewdness and passion at once." Here are the trifling faults of a Prelate, " the whole course of whose life declared him to be one of the greatest men of that age." The Reformation, either not over nice in virtue, or indulgent to her heroes, easily forgives them such abominations ; and if Montluc, for having only a little spice of Reformation, was a man, notwithstanding such crimes, almost irreproachable, no wonder so great a Reformer as Cranmer should have merited such high encomiums.

Thus warned against any imposition for the future, from the great commendations, wherewith Mr. Burnet extols his Reformers and Cranmer most particularly; let us now form the history of this Prelate on the facts related by this historian, his perpetual admirer, and observe, at the same time, in what spirit the Reformation was conceived.

8, — Cranmer, a Lutheran according to Mr. Burnet. — Hoiv he came into the King' s favour and that of Anne Boleyn.

Ever since the year 1529, Thomas Cranmer had put himself at the head of that party, which favoured the Queen's divorce, and the marriage the King was resolved upon with Anne Boleyn. In 1530, he wrote a book against the validity of Catherine's marriage, and we may judge how successfully, by thus flattering the predominant passion of his Prince, he made his court. From that time, he began to be considered at Court as a kind of favourite, and looked on as the person likeliest to succeed in credit to Cardinal Wolsey. Cranmer was then devoted to Luther's doctrine, and as Mr. Burnet says, was looked on as the most learned of those who had embraced it⁵. Anne Boleyn, proceeds this author, had also received some impressions of this doctrine . Afterwards he makes her appear wholly devoted to the sentiments of those whom he calls the Reformers. By this word we must always understand the hidden or avowed enemies of the Mass and Catholic doctrine. Crome, Shaxton, Latimer, and others, adds he, of that society favoured the Kings cause J. Here we have the secret which linked Cranmer and his adherents with Henry's mistress : here lies the foundation of this new favourite's interest, and the beginnings of the English Reformation. The unhappy Prince, who knew nothing of these

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258 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK associations and designs, did himself insensibly combine with the enemies of that faith, which he till then had so well defended, and through their secret machinations, became unwittingly subservient to the designs of destroying it.

9. — Cranmer, sent to Rome on account of the divorce, is there made the Pope's Penitentiary. — He marries, though a Priest, but in private.

Cranmer was sent into Italy and Rome in behalf of the divorce, and there carried the dissimulation of his errors so far, that the Pope made him his penitentiary ; which shews he was a priest. He accepted of this employment, Lutheran as he was. From Rome he went into Germany, there to manage his good friends the Protestants ; and then it was he married Osiander's sister. Some say, he had debauched her, and was forced to marry her ; but I shall not vouch for these scandalous facts till I find them well attested by those of the party, or at least by unsuspected authors⁶. As for the marriage, the fact is certain. These men are accustomed, in spite of the canons, in spite of the profession of continency, to look on such marriages as good. But Henry was of another mind, and held married priests in abhorrencef. Cranmer had been already expelled Jesus College, in Cambridge, for a former marriage. The second he contracted, whilst a priest, would have brought him into much more dreadful circumstances, since, by the canon law, he would have been excluded from this holy order by a second marriage, though contracted even before priesthood. The Reformers, in their hearts, made but a jest both of the sacred canons and their own vows ; but for fear of Henry, it was necessary to keep this marriage private, and this great Reformer set out by deceiving his master in a concern of this importance.

10. — Cranmer, nominated Archbishop of Canterbury , receives the Pope's Bulls, though a married man and a Lutheran.

Whilst he was in Germany, in the year 1533, the Archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant by Warham's death. The King of England nominated Cranmer, and he accepted of itt. The Pope, who knew no error in him, but that of maintaining the nullity of Henry's marriage, (a thing at that time undecided,) gave him his bulls; Cranmer received them, and dreaded not, by so doing, to contaminate himself by re-

• Bum. t. i, lib. ii. p. 92. t Ibid. p. 75. % Ibid. p. 128.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 259 ceiving, as the party used to speak, with the character of the beast.

11. — Cranmefs consecration; profession of submission to the Pope ; his hypocrisy.

At his consecration, and before they proceeded to ordain him, he took the usual oath of fidelity to the Pope, introduced some ages before. This was not without scruple, as Mr. Burnet tells us ; but Cranmer had ways and means of coming off, and salved all by protesting that he intended not to restrain himself by this oath from what he owed his conscience, his king, and his country : a protestation in itself quite needless ; for who of us imagines he engages himself by this oath to anything that is contrary to his conscience, or the service of his king and country ? Far from thinking we prejudice any of these, it is even expressed in the oath, that we take it without prejudice to the rights of our order, Salvo ordinemeo. The submission, which is sworn to the Pope in spirituals⁷, is of a different order from what we naturally owe our Prince in temporals, and without protesting, we have always well understood, that one does not interfere with the other. But in a word, either this oath is a mere empty form, or it obliges to acknowledge the Pope's spiritual jurisdiction. The new Archbishop, therefore, acknowledged it in word, though he believed no such thing. Mr. Burnet f grants that this expedient did but little agree with Cranmer's sincerity ; and in order to extenuate as far as he was able so criminal a dissimulation, acids a little after, " by which, if he did not wholly save his integrity, yet it was plain he intended no cheat." What is it, then, we call a cheat, or can there be a greater than to swear what you do not believe, and come prepared with shifts to elude your oath, by a protestation conceived in words so indeterminate? But Mr. Burnet thinks not fit to tell us that Cranmer, who was consecrated with all the ceremonies of the Pontifical, besides this oath he pretended to evade the force of, made other declarations, against which he did not protest : viz. " To receive with submission the traditions of the Fathers, and the constitutions of the Holy See-Apostolic, to render obedience to St. Peter in the person of his vicar the Pope and his successors, according to canonical authority; to keep chastity," which in the intention of the Church, as expressly declared from the time one is admitted to subdeaconship, imported celibacy and continency. This is what s 2

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Mr. Burnet makes no mention of. He does not tell us that Cranmer said Mass according to custom together with his consecrator. Cranmer ought also to have protested against this act, and against all the Masses he said when officiating in his Church ; or, at least, during the whole reign of Henry VIII., that is, for thirteen years successively. Mr. Burnet speaks not a word of all these fine actions of his hero. He tells us not, that when he made priests, as doubtless he did in the space of so many years as he was Archbishop, he made them according to the terms of the Pontifical, wherein Henry changed nothing, no more than in the Mass. He, therefore, gave them power " of changing the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ by their holy benediction, of offering the sacrifice, and saying Mass as well for the living as the dead *." It would have been much more important to protest against so many acts so contrary to Lutheranism, than against the oath of obedience to the Pope. But the thing was, Henry VIII., whom a protestation against the Pope's supremacy did not offend, would not have endured the rest. This was the cause of Cranmer's dissimulation. Here then we have him, all at once, a Lutheran, a married man, a concealer of his marriage, an Archbishop according to the Roman Pontifical, subject to the Pope, whose power he detested in his heart, saying Mass which he did not believe in, and giving power to say it ; yet, nevertheless, if we believe Mr. Burnet, a second Athanasius, a second Cyril, one of the most perfect prelates the Church ever had. What a notion would he give us, not only of St. Athanasius and St. Cyril, but also of St. Augustin," St. Ambrose, St. Basil, and all the Saints in general, had they nothing in them more excellent, nor less defective, than a man who practises, for so long a time, what he believes the very height of sacrilege and abomination ? Thus are men blind in the new Reformation ; and thus the darkness which overcast the minds of the first Reformers, is diffused around their defenders to this very day.

12. — Reflection on Cranmer'' s 'pretended moderation.

Mr. Burnet pretends that his Archbishop did all he could to waive this eminent dignity, and admires his moderation. For my part, I am far from disputing with the greatest enemies of the Church, certain moral virtues, to be met with in heathens and philosophers ; which, in heretics, were nothing

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 261 else but a snare of '%Satan to intrap the weak, and a part of that hypocrisy which seduces them. But Mr. Burnet has too much wit not to see that Cranmer, who had on his side Anne Boleyn, with whom the King was so smitten ; who did all which could be required to favour the amorous passion of that prince,; and who, after declaring against Catherine's marriage, had made himself so necessary to the breaking of it, was very sensible Henry could never choose an Archbishop more favourable to his designs: so that nothing was more easy for him than to obtain the Archbishopric by refusing it, and thus add the repute of moderation to the honour of so great a prelacy.

13. — Cranmer proceeds to a sentence of Divorce. — He takes the title of Legate of the Apostolic See in giving the sentence.

Accordingly, no sooner was Cranmer raised to this dignity, but he bestirred himself to make an interest in the Parliament in favour of the divorce. Before this time, in the year 1532, the King had already privately married Anne Boleyn : she was with child, and the secret was ready to break out. The Archbishop, who was privy to it, signalized himself in this juncture, and evinced much vigour in flattering the King. By his archiepiscopal authority, he wrote him a very serious letter on his incestuous marriage with Catherine: " a marriage (said he) the world had long been scandalized with⁸;" and declared to him that, for his part, he was determined to suffer no longer so great a scandal. Here is a man of wonderful resolution, a second John the Baptist. Thereupon he cites the King and Queen to appear before him: he proceeds : the Queen does not appear : the Archbishop declared her contumacious, and the marriage null from the beginning; nor did he forget, in his sentence, to take upon him, as was customary with the Archbishops of Canterbury t, the cpjality of Legate to the See Apostolic. Mr. Burnet insinuates J, this might be done in order to make the sentence firmer : that is to say, the Archbishop, who in his heart neither owned Pope nor Holy See, was willing, for the King's sake, to take that title which would best authorize his pleasures. Five days after, he confirmed the private marriage of Anne Boleyn, though contracted before that of Catherine was declared void, and the Archbishop hesitated not to ratify so irregular a proceeding.

14. — The sentence of Clement VII.,' and Henry's rage against the See.

The definitive sentence of Clement VII. against the King of England is known sufficiently. It followed soon after that which Cranmer had given in his behalf; Henry, entertaining still some hopes from the court of Rome, had again submitted himself to the decision of the Holy See, even after the Archbishop's judgment. There is no need of relating to what excess of wrath the King was transported, and Mr. Burnet himself owns " he kept no measure in his resentments⁹." Accordingly, from that period he began to carry his title, of Supreme Head of the Church of England, to its utmost extent.

15. — More and Fisher condemned to Death for refusing to ovm the King Head of the Church. — 1534.

Then it was the world lamented the death of two, the greatest men of England for piety and learning: of Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor ; and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester f. Mr. Burnet himself grieves at the occurrence, and looks upon the " tragical end of these two great men to have left one of the greatest blots on this King's proceedings J."

These were the two most illustrious victims of the ecclesiastical supremacy. More being very much urged to own it, made this fine answer : " That he should distrust his own understanding, were he alone against the whole Parliament : but, although the great council of England was against him, the whole Church, the great Council of Christendom, was on his side.''' Fisher's end was not less glorious, nor less Christian.

16. — The memorable date of Henry's Cruelties and other excesses.

Then began executions indifferently against Catholics as well as Protestants, and Henry became the most sanguinary of all princes. But remarkable is the date : " It does not appear (says Burnet) that cruelty was natural to him. For, in twenty-five years' reign, none had suffered for any crime against the State §" but two men, whose punishment could not be imputed to him. " Yet, in the ten last years of his life (says the same author) many instances of severity

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 263 occurred *." Mr. Burnet will not have him imitated, nor condemned with too much severity ; but none condemns him more sharply than Burnet himself, who thus speaks of this Prince: "The vastnessand irregularity of his expense procured many heavy exactions, and twice extorted a public discharge of his debts, embased the coin, with other irregularities. His proud and impatient spirit occasioned many cruel proceedings; the taking so many lives only for denying his supremacy, particularly Fisher's and More's, the one being extreme old, and the other one of the glories of his nation, for probity and learning." The rest may be seen in his Preface ; but I cannot omit the last touch : " That which was the first of all, and deserved most to be blamed, was the laying a precedent for the subversion of justice, and oppressing the clearest innocence, by attainting men without hearing them." All this notwithstanding, Mr. Burnet would have us believe, that although u upon slight grounds he was too ready to bring his subjects to the bar, yet they were indicted and judged always according to law,-f-" — as if the making unjust laws, such as condemning the accused without allowing them a hearing, and laying snares for the innocent in the formalities of justice, were not the height of cruelty and tyranny. But what can be more horrible than what is added by the same historian ? " That this Prince, whether impatient of contradiction, or perhaps blown up, either with the vanity of this new title of Head of the Church, or with the praises which flattery bestowed on him ; he thought all persons were bound to regulate their belief by his dictates j." These are, indeed, " such odious blemishes in the life of a Prince (as Mr. Burnet speaks) that no honest man can excuse;" and we are obliged to this author for having saved us the trouble of lookinoout for proofs of all these excesses in histories that might be more suspected. But what cannot be dissembled is, that Henry, so averse before to these horrible disorders, did not fall into them, according to Mr. Burnet's own confession, till the ten last years of Ins life; that is, he fell into them immediately after his divorce, after his open rupture with the Church, after he had usurped, " by an example unprecedented " in all ages, the ecclesiastical supremacy : and forced he is to own, that one of the causes of his prodigious blindness was, " this glorious title of Head of the Church," which his people had bestowed upon him. I now leave the Christian reader to judge, whether these be the characters of a Reformer ; or rather, of a Prince, whose excesses the divine * Burn. lib. iii. p. 181. f P. 180. \ Ibid.

justice revenges by other excesses ; whom it delivers over to the desires of his own heart, and abandons visibly to a reprobate sense.

17. — Cromwell made Vicegerent. — Everything concurs to excite the King against the Faith of the Church. — 1 535.

The death of Fisher and More, and so many other bloody executions, cast terror into all minds ; everybody swore to Henry's Supremacy, and none durst stand up against it. This Supremacy was established by divers Acts of Parliament, and " the first act of the king's supremacy was the nominating Cromwell vicar-general in spirituals, and visitor of all the monasteries and other privileged places throughout England¹⁰." This was properly declaring himself Pope ; and what is more remarkable, this was placing the whole ecclesiastic power in the hands of a Zuinglian, for I am persuaded Cromwell was one, or, if Mr. Burnet likes better, at least a Lutheran. It has appeared, that Cranmer, Cromwell's intimate friend, was of the same party, and that both of them acted unanimously, in order to excite the incensed King against the ancient faithf. The new Queen favoured them with all her power, and took Shaxton and Latimer, hidden Protestants, to be her chaplains, and promoted them to the bishoprics of Salisbury and Worcester. But although every thing went contrary to the old religion, and the chief ecclesiastic and secular powers conspired its utter subversion, it is not always in the hands of men to carry on their evil purposes as far as they desire. Henry was provoked only against the Pope and Holy See. Accordingly, he attacked only this authority ; and God willed it so, that the Reformation, from her infancy, should bear marked on her forehead the impression of this Prince's hatred and revenge. Whatever, therefore, might be the vicar-general's aversion to the Mass, power was not then given him, like another Antiochus, against the perpetual sacrifice^ ; one of his visitorial injunctions was, that every priest should say Mass daily, and the religious observe their rule carefully, and particularly their three vows§.

18. — Cranmefs Metropolitical Visitation by the King's authority.

Cranmer also made his metropolitical visitation, but it was after he had obtained the King's licence for it : they began

X Dan. viilp. 12. § Burn. lib. iii. p. 186. Ibid. p. 184.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 265 to perform all acts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in virtue of the royal authority. The whole drift of this visitation, as of all the actions of those days, was firmly to establish the King's ecclesiastical supremacy*. A t that time, the complying archbishop had nothing so much at heart as this, and the first act of jurisdiction, which the bishop of the first See in England did, was to enslave the Church, and subject to the earthly Kings that power which she had received from Heaven.

19. — The Plundering of Monasteries.

The visitations were followed by the suppression of Monasteries, whose revenues the King appropriated to himself. Protestant and Catholic countries indifferently cried out shame against the sacrilegious rapine of goods consecrated to God ; but to the character of revenge, which the English Reformation bore from the beginning, was to be joined that also of an infamous avarice ; and this was one of the first fruits of Henry's supremacy, who made himself head of the Church, to have a title to plunder it.

20. — The Death of Queen Catherine. — A comparison betwixt this Princess and Anne Boleyn. — 1536.

Soon after this, died Queen Catherine : " she was a devout and pious Princess, (says Mr. Burnet,) and led a severe and mortified life. In her greatness, she wrought much with her own hands, and kept her women well employed about her ;" and to join common with great virtues, the same historian adds that, by the writers of those times, " she is represented as a most wonderful good womanf." These characters are widely different from those of her rival Anne Boleyn. Allowing she might be vindicated from those infamous actions, which her favourites, at their death, charged her with, Mr. Burnet^ does not deny that her gaiety was immodest, her liberties indiscreet, her behaviour irregular and licentious. A virtuous woman, not to say a queen, never bears with the failure of due respect, so far as to suffer such declarations as men of all degrees, even the lowest, made to this Princess. Why do I say suffer ? — be pleased with them, — and not only take part therein, but also draw them on herself, and not blush to sav to one of her gallants, " that he looked for dead men's shoes, and if aught came to the King but good, he would look to have her§."" All these things are owned * Burn. lib. iii. p. 183. + Ibid. p. 192. J Ibid. p. 197. $ Ibid. p. 199.

by Anne, and far from shewing a greater discountenance to those bold lovers, it is certain, without entering farther into the matter, she did but treat them the better for it. In the midst of this strange conduct, " we are assured that she grew more full of good works, and alms-deeds¹¹," and with the exception of her advancing the pretended Reformation, which nobody disputes, this is all that is told us of her virtues.

21. — Sequel of the comparison, and visible mark of God's Judgment. — Cranmer annuls the King's Marriage with Anne.

But if we carry our reflections still higher, we cannot but acknowledge the hand of God on this Princess. She enjoyed but three years that glory to which so many troubles had elevated her : a new fit of love raised her up, and a new amour pulled her down ; and Henry, who had sacrificed Catherine to her, soon sacrificed Anne to the youth and charms of Jane Seymour. But Catherine, when she lost the King's affections, preserved, at least, his esteem to the very end ; whereas, he had Anne executed infamously on a scaffoldf. This death happened a few months after that of Catherine. But Catherine preserved to the very last the character of gravity and constancy, which she had kept up during the entire course of her life. As for Anne, at the moment she was taken, whilst she prayed to God in tears, she was observed to break out into a fit of laughing, like a distracted person]; : the words she vented in passion against her lovers, who had betrayed her, shewed the disorder she was in, and the troubled state of her conscience. But here is a visible mark of the hand of God. The King, always hurried on by his new amours, caused his marriage with Anne to be annulled in favour of Jane Seymour, as he had annulled Catherine's in favour of Anne. Elizabeth, Anne's daughter, was declared illegitimate, as Mary, Catherine's daughter, had been before. By a just retaliation, Anne fell into the same pit she had dug for her innocent rival. But Catherine, even to death, maintained the dignity of a Queen, the truth of her marriage, and the honour of Mary's birth. Anne, on the contrary, through a shameful compliance, owned what was false, — that she had married Henry whilst Lord Piercy was living, with whom she had before contracted ; and by confessing, contrary to her con-

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 267 science, the nullity of her marriage with the King, involved her daughter Elizabeth in her own shame. To the end that God's justice might appear more manifest in this memorable event, Cranmer, that same Cranmer who had annulled Catherine's marriage#, annulled, likewise, that of Anne, to whom, of all persons living, he was most obliged. God struck with blindness all who had contributed to the breach of so solemn a marriage as was that of Catherine : Henry, Anne, the archbishop himself, not one escaped. Cranmer 's base pusillanimity, and his extreme ingratitude to Anne, excited the abhorrence of all good men ; and his shameful compliance, in breaking all marriages just as it pleased Henry, took from his first sentence all the appearance of authority which the name of an Archbishop could have given to it.

22. — Cranmer' 's base compliance ill excused by Mr. Burnet.

Mr. Burnet f sees with great concern so odious a blot in the life of his great Reformer, and to excuse him says, that Anne declared, in his presence, her marriage with Lord Piercy ; by which it was evident, that which she had made with the King was not valid ; upon which confession he could not but separate her from this Prince, and give sentence for the nullity of the marriage. But here is a too manifest imposition : it was notorious in England that Anne's engagement with Piercy, far from being a concluded marriage, was not even a promise of marriage to be concluded, but a bare proposal of a marriage desired by this lord : which, so far from invalidating a subsequent marriage, would not even have been an impediment to the contracting of it. Mr. Burnet agrees herein, and lays down all these facts as certain t. Cranmer, who knew the whole secret of what had passed between the King and Anne, could not be ignorant of them ; and Piercy, the Queen's pretended husband, had " taken his oath before the two Archbishops, that there was no contract, nor promise of marriage even between them, and received the Sacrament upon it before the principal of the King's privy-council; wishing it might be to his damnation, if there were any such thing §." So solemn an oath received by Cranmer discovered to him plainly that Anne's confession was not free. When she made it, she was adjudged to die, and, as Mr. Burnet says, "even thunderstruck with the terrible sentence

% Ibid. § Ibid.¹²

of being burnt¹³ ." This the laws had condemned her to ; and the mitigating so cruel a part of her judgment depended on the King alone. Cranmer might easily judge that, in such a condition, she might be wrought upon to confess what they pleased, " either by some hopes of life, or by mitigating her sentence *}-." Then was the time for an Archbishop to lend his helping hand to an oppressed person, whom trouble, or hopes of softening her punishment, makes to speak against her conscience. If Anne, his benefactress, did not move him, he ought, at least, to have compassionated the innocence of Elizabeth just going to be declared born in adultery, and, as such, incapable of inheriting the crown and this on no other grounds but a declaration extorted from the Queen her mother. Nor does God bestow so great an authority on bishops, but with the obligation of lending the assistance of their eloquence to the infirm, and their strength to the oppressed. But virtues, to which Cranmer was a stranger, were not to be expected from him : not even the courage to represent to the King, the manifest contrariety of the two sentences, which he caused to be pronounced against Anne ; one of which condemned her to death for defiling the King's bed by her adulteries ; the other, by reason of a pre-contract, declared she never had been married to the King J. Cranmer dissembled so flagrant an iniquity ; and all he did in behalf of the unhappy Princess was to write a letter to the King, wherein he wishes she may declare herself innocent §; which he concludes with a postscript, protesting he is exceedingly sorry that such faults can be proved, as he heard by relation || : so much did he fear giving Henry the least suspicion that he disapproved of any thing he did.

23. — The Execution of Anne Boleyn.

It had been thought his credit was shaken by Anne's down7 fall. And, indeed, immediately upon it, he was forbidden to approach the King ; but he soon found means of ingratiating himself at the expense of his benefactress, and by cancelling her marriage ^J. The unfortunate Princess was in hopes of moving the King, by owning all he desired. This confession only saved her from the stake, and Henry condemned her to the block. She comforted herself on the day of her death, because she had heard say the executioner was very dexterous; and besides, said she, I have a slender neck. At the same

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 269 time, adds the witness of her death, she put her hands about it, laughing heartily ; either from ostentation of an uncommon intrepidity, or because her head was turned at death's approach ; and it seems to have been God's judgment on that unhappy Princess, that her end, dismal as it was, should yet have something in it no less ridiculous than tragical.

24. — Henry's decisions of Faith. — He confirms that of the Church concerning the Sacrament of Penance.

It is time to relate the definitions of faith which Henry made in quality of Supreme Head of the Church of England. In these articles, drawn up by the King himself, we have a confirmation of the Catholic doctrine. Here we find " the absolution of the priest taught, as instituted by Jesus Christ, and to be looked upon as valid as if given by God himself," with the necessity of confession to a priest, if it may be had¹⁴. On this foundation are built the three acts of penance divinely instituted, contrition and confession in express terms, and satisfaction under the name of worthy fruits of penance, which we must bring forth, although it be true that God pardons sins only for the satisfaction of Jesus Christ, and not on account of our merits. Here is the whole substance of the Catholic doctrine. Nor must it be imagined by Protestants, that what is said of satisfaction is peculiar to themselves, since the council of Trent has ever believed that the forgiveness of sins is a pure grace, granted on account of the sole merits of Jesus Christ.

25. — Concerning the Eucharist.

In the Sacrament of the Altar is owned, " The very same body of Christ, that was born of the Virgin Mary, truly and substantially given under the forms of bread ancl wine ;" or, as the English original speaks, " Under the form and figure of bread :" which marks most distinctly the Real Presence of the body, and gives to understand, according to the usual expression, that nothing but the species of bread remains.

26. — Concerning Images and Saints.

Images were retained, with full liberty of incensing them, kneeling before them, bringing offerings, and shewing respect to them, in consideration that these homages were a relative honour, directed to God, and not to the Image t. This was¹⁵ not only approving the honour of Images in general, but those things, in particular, wherein it is carried to its greatest height.

The people were to be taught that it was good to pray to the saints, that they would pray for, and with us, yet so as not to think to obtain those things at their hands which were only to be obtained of God #.

When Mr. Burnet looks upon this as a kind of " Reformation, that the immediate worship of Images was removed, and the direct invocation of saints changed into a simple prayer of praying for the faithful -J-,'1 he does but trifle ; since there is not a Catholic but will own to him that he hopes for nothing from the saints but by their prayers, nor renders any honour to images but what is here expressed with relation to God.

27. — Of Ceremonies. — Of the Cross.

Touching ceremonies, these are expressly approved of, " viz. holy water, blessed bread, hallowing the font, the exorcisms in baptism, giving ashes on Ash-Wednesday, bearing palms on Palm-Sunday ; creeping to the cross on Good-Friday, and kissing it in memory of Christ's death J :" all these ceremonies were looked upon as a kind of mysterious language, which brought to mind God's benefits, and excited the soul to raise itself up to heaven, which, in reality, is the very notion all Catholics have of them.

28. — On Purgatory and Masses for the dead.

The custom of praying for the dead is warranted as having a certain foundation in the book of Maccabees, and a continuation in the Church from the beginning : all is approved of, and it is held " consistent with the due order of charity to pray for them, and to make others pray for them, in Masses and Exequies, and to give alms to them for that end¹⁶ :" whereby that was acknowledged in the Mass, which was the great aversion of the new Reformation, viz. that virtue by which, independently of communion, it profited those for whom it wTas said, inasmuch as those souls, doubtless, did not communicate.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 271

29. — The King decides concerning Faith, by his own authority.

With relation to each of these articles the King said, that he enjoined all Bishops to announce them to the people, " By him committed to their spiritual charge ;" a language till then quite unheard of in the Church. The truth is, when he decided these points of Faith, he had before heard the Bishops, as judges hear lawyers ; but it was he that prescribed and decided. All the Bishops signed, after Cromwell, the Vicargeneral, and Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury.

30. — Cranmer and the rest subscribed Henry' 's articles against their consciences. — Mr. Burnet strives in vain to excuse them.

Mr. Burnet is ashamed to see his Reformers approve the chief articles of the Catholic doctrine, and even the Mass itself, which alone contained them all. But he excuses them, saying, " That some of the Bishops and Divines were not then so fully convinced about some matters, which afterwards they arrived to a clearer understanding of, and so it was their ignorance, and not their cowardice or policy, that made them compliant in some things¹⁷." But is not this bantering the world in too gross a manner, to make the Reformers ignorant of what was most essential in the Reformationf? If Cranmer and his adherents sincerely approved all these articles, even the Mass, wherein could they be called Lutherans? and if, from that time, they rejected in their hearts all these pretended abuses, as doubtless they did, what was their signing them else but a shameful prostitution of their consciences? Nevertheless, Mr. Burnet will have it, at all events, that the Reformation took a great step at that very time, because in the first of Henry's articles the "Scriptures and the ancient Creeds were made the standards of the people's faithj," with a prohibition of saying anything that was not conformable to them ; a thing which nobody denied, and which, consequently, stood in no need of being reformed.

Such are the articles of faith which were established by Henry in 1536. But although he had omitted some, and in particular no mention was there made of four Sacraments, Confirmation, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony, it is certain, however, that he altered nothing therein no more than in the other points of our faith ; but his design was to express particularly, in those articles, what was most control * Burn. 1. iii. p. 219. f Ibid. p. 21. J Ibid. p. 218.

272 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK verted at that time, to the end that he might leave no doubt of his perseverance in the ancient faith.

31. — To draw in the Gentry, Church lands are sold at low rates.

At the same time, by Cromwell's advice, and in order to draw in the gentry to his sentiments, he sold them in their several counties the lands of those monasteries that had been suppressed, and at very low prices¹⁸. Such was the cunning of the Reformers, and such the ties that linked men to the Reformation.

32. — Cromwell and Cranmer confirm anew the Faith of the Church, which they detested in their hearts .

The Vicegerent published also a new ecclesiastical regulation, which had the doctrine of the above articles, so conformable to Catholic doctrine, for its foundation. Mr. Burnet finds a great likelihood that these injunctions were opened by Cranmerf, and gives us a new instance, that, in point of religion, this Archbishop was capable of the most criminal dissimulations.

33. — Henry 's Sir Articles. — 1539.

Henry explained himself more distinctly as to the ancient faith, in the famous declaration of those six articles which he published in 1-539. In the first, he established Transubstantiation ; in the second, Communion in one kind ; in the third, the Celibacy of Priests, with the penalty of death for those who should trespass against it ; in the fourth, the obligation of keeping Vows ; in the fifth, the use of private Masses ; in the sixth, the necessity of auricular Confession^. These articles were published by authority of the King and Parliament ; and it was enacted that those who obstinately opposed them should suffer death, and the rest be prisoners during the King's pleasure.

34. — The King's marriage with Anne of Cleves, Cromwell's design, who proposed it. — The King's new amours. — Cromwell condemned to death. — 1540.

Whilst Henry declared himself in so terrible a manner against the pretended Reformation, Cromwell, the Vicegerent, and the Archbishop, saw no other way of advancing it, than by

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 273 giving the Kino- a wife, who might protect them and their designs. The Queen, Jane Seymour, died in the year 1537, in child-bed of Edward. If she experienced not Henry's fickleness, Mr. Burnet is of opinion, it was owing, in all likelihood, to the shortness of her life. Cromwell, who remembered how much power Henry's wives had over him as long as they continued in his affection, believed that Anne of Cleves'¹⁹ beauty would be a great prop to his measures, and prevailed with the King to marry her ; but unluckily this Prince fell in love with Catherine Howardf, and scarce had he accomplished his marriage with Anne, but he bent all his thoughts to break it off. The Vicegerent underwent the punishment of having advised him to it, and found his ruin where he thought to meet with his support. It was perceived that he gave private encouragement to the new preachers, enemies of the Six Articles and Real Presence!, which the King defended vehemently. Some words spoken by him on this occasion against the King, were brought to his ears²⁰. Whereupon the Parliament, by the King's orders, condemned him for a heretic and traitor to his country ||. It was observed, he was condemned without being heard, and so bore the punishment of that detestable advice he had been the first author of, to attaint people without hearing them. And after this, will any one say that the arm of God was not visible on these miserable Reformers, the most wicked, as we see, no less than the greatest hypocrites of all mankind ?

35. — Cromwell's hypocrisy — Mr. Burnet's vain artifices.

Cromwell, above all the rest, prostituted his conscience to flattery ; he, in his quality of Vicegerent, authorizing in public all Henry's articles of faith, which he strove secretly to destroy. Mr. Burnet conjectures, that, if he was refused a hearing, it was because " It was very probable that in all he had done that way, viz. for the pretended Reformation, he had the King's warrant for it, and acted only by his order, whose proceedings towards a Reformation are well known. %" But this time the artifice is too gross, and, to be deluded by it, a man must wilfully blind himself. Will Mr. Burnet have the face to say, that the proceedings towards a Reformation, which he attributes to Henry, were in prejudice to his Six Articles, or the Real Presence, or the Mass ? This would be giving himself the lie, since he owns throughout liis whole work, that this Prince was always very zealous for, or, to use his own words, addicted to, all these articles. Nevertheless he would here have us believe, that Cromwell had secret orders to undermine them, when at the same time he is put to death for having favoured those who impugned them.

36. — Cranmefs prostitution of conscience — he annuls the King's marriage with Anne of Cleves — the magnificent terms of this unjust sentence — the King marries Catherine Howard, who is favourable to the Reformation, and soon beheaded for her infamous behaviour — the judgment of the Convocation.

But let us leave Mr. Burnet's conjectures, and his vain shifts to colour the Reformation, and confine ourselves to facts which truth will not suffer him to deny. After Cromwell's attainder, it was still requisite, for the King's satisfaction, to rid him of his odious wife, by making void the marriage with Anne of Cleves. The pretext was very gross. The betrothing of this Princess to the Marquis of Lorrain whilst both parties were minors, and which they never ratified when of age, was alleged as the cause of nullity. It was plain nothing could be more weak in order to dissolve a perfectly complete marriage. But, though reasons were wanting, the King had a Cranmer ready for all jobs. By means of this Archbishop this marriage was cancelled similarly to the two others. " The sentence was pronounced the 9th of July, 1540, and the whole convocation, without one disagreeing vote, judged the marriage null. The sentence was signed by all the ecclesiastics of both chambers, and sealed with the seals of both Archbishops." Mr. Burnet is ashamed, and owns²¹ " this was the greatest piece of compliance that ever the king had from their clergy; for they all knew there was nothing of weight in that pre-contract," which was made the foundation of the divorcef. Therefore they acted openly against their consciences ; but lest we should, at another time, be imposed upon by the specious terms of the new Reformation, it is proper to take notice that they pass this sentence, as representing the great Council, after having said that the King required nothing of them but what was true, was just, was honourable, and holy : in this manner spoke those corrupted Bishops^. Cranmer, who presided over this assembly, and carried the result of it to the Parliament, was the greatest

% Collec, Rec. Lib. iii. n. 19. p. 197.

Til.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 275 coward of them all; and Mr. Burnet, after having strained hard to palliate the matter, is forced to own that, overcome with fear (for he knew it was contrived to send him quickly after Cromwell), he consented with the rest²². Such was the courage of this second Athanasius, the virtue of this second Cyril. Upon this unjust sentence the King married Catherine Howard, no less zealous for the new Reformation than Anne Boleyn. But strange was the destiny that attended these female Reformers. Her scandalous life soon brought her to the scaffold, nor w&s Henry's house ever clear from the stains of blood and infamy.

37. — A new declaration of Faith conformable to the Church's doctrine.

The prelates made a new confession of faith, which this Prince confirmed by his authority; wherein the belief of the seven sacraments was declared in express terms, that of penance, in the absolution given by the priest ; the necessity of confession, transubstantiation, concomitancy. " So that (says Mr. Burnet) communion in both kinds was not necessary ; the veneration of images and praying to saints, in the same sense we have seen in the King's first declaration, which is the sense of the Church ; the necessity and merit of good works in order to obtain life everlasting ; prayers for the dead ; and, in short, all the rest of the Catholic doctrine, except the article of Supremacy, whereof we shall speak apartf."

38. — Cranmefs hypocrisy, who signs all of them.

Cranmer, with the rest, subscribed to every one ; for, although Mr. Burnet asserts that some articles passed which were contrary to his sentiments, yet he yielded to the plurality, and we observe no opposition on his part to the common judgment. The same exposition had been published by the King's authority ever since the year 1538, signed by nineteen Bishops, eight Archdeacons, and seventeen Doctors, without any opposition. Such, at that time, was the faith of the Church of England and of Henry, whom she had owned for her head. The Archbishop approved of all against his conscience. His master's will was his sovereign rule ; and, instead of the Holy See with the Catholic Church, the King alone was to him infallible.

39. — Nothing considerable was changed in the Missals and the other books of the Church — Continuation of Cranmer' s hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, he continued saying Mass, which he rejected in his heart, although nothing was changed in the Mass-books. Mr. Burnet agrees, "The alterations they made were inconsiderable, and so slight, that there was no need of reprinting either the Missals, Breviaries, or other Offices : for (proceeds this historian) a few rasures of these Collects, in which the Pope was prayed for, of Thomas Becket's Office (St, Thomas of Canterbury), and the Offices of other Saints, whose days were, by the King's injunctions, no more to be observed, with some other deletions, made that the old books did still serve²³." After all, then, the same worship was still practised. Cranmer complied with it ; and if you would know all that troubled him, it was, as we learn from Mr. Burnet, because, excepting Fox, Bishop of Hereford f, as great a dissembler as himself, the other Bishops that adhered to him;!; were rather clogs than helps to him, because they would not be managed and governed by politic and jDrudent measures, but were flying at many things that were not yet abolished. Cranmer, who betrayed his conscience, and attacked in secret what he approved and practised in public, was more cunning, since he knew how to introduce his skill, in managing his politic measures, into the very heart and vitals of religion.

40. — Cranmer's behaviour in relation to the Six Articles.

One may wonder, perchance, how a man of this temper ventured to speak against the Six Articles ; for this is the only place were Mr. Burnet makes him courageous; but he himself discovers the cause to us. It was because he had a particular interest in the article which condemned married priests to death, for he was then married himself²⁴. It had been too much to suffer his own condemnation to pass in Parliament for a standing law, and his fear even made him then shew some kind of courage : accordingly, though he spoke but faintly against the other articles, yet he delivered himself fully against this. But, after all, it does not appear that he did any more on this occasion than, after a vain struggle to dissuade the law, to fall in at last, as his custom was, with the general opinion.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 277

41. — Mr. Burnet's account of Cranmer's resistance.

But here is the greatest act of his resolution. Mr. Burnet would have us believe, upon the credit of an author of Cromwell's life, that the King, being concerned for Cranmer on account of the act on behalf of the Six Articles, was desirous of knowing why he opposed them, and ordered him to put all his arguments in writing, which he did²⁵. The paper, written out fair by his secretary, fell into the hands of one of Cranmer's enemies. It was immediately carried to Cromwell, then living, with the design of having the author taken up ; but Cromwell stifled the thing, and so Cranmer escaped this hazard-f.

This account naturally leads us to believe that the King knew nothing at all of Cranmer's writing against the Six Articles ; and that, had he known it, this prelate would have been utterly ruined ; and, lastly, that he escaped purely by his cunning and perpetual dissimulation : however, if Mr. Burnet had rather have it so, I am willing to believe the King found so great a propensity in Cranmer to approve, in public, all his master could desire, that this Prince had no reason to be under any concern what a person of that compliance might think in private, nor could he find in his heart to part with so commodious a counsellor.

42. — Cranmer's shameful sentiments on the Ecclesiastical authority, which he sacrifices to the Crown.

It was not only with regard to his new mistresses that the King experienced him so great a flatterer : Cranmer had forged for him, in his own brain, that new idea of supremacy annexed to the Crown : and what he says concerning it, in a paper produced by Mr. Burnet among his Records, is unexampled;!:. He teaches then, " That all Christian Princes have committed unto them immediately of God the whole cure of all their subjects, as well concerning the administration of God's word, for the cure of souls, as concerning the ministration of things political and civil governance : and, in both these ministrations, they must have sundry ministers under them to supply that which is appointed to their several offices ; as for example, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Lord Great Master, and the Sheriffs for Civil Ministers ; and the Bishops, Parsons, Vicars, and such other Priests as be appoi?ited by his Highness in the ministration of the word ; as for example,

278 THE HISTORY OY [BOOK the Bishop of Winchester, the Parson of Winwick, &c. All the said Officers and Ministers, as well of that sort as the other, must be appointed, assigned, and elected, and in every place, by the laws and orders of Kings and Princes, with divers solemnities, which be not of necessity, but only for good order and seemly fashion ; for if such offices and ministrations were committed without such solemnity, they were, nevertheless, truly committed ; and there is no more promise of God, that grace is given in the committing of the ecclesiastical office, than it is in the committing of the civil office."

43. — Crammer"1 s Answer to an Objectibn. — Shameful Doctrine concerning the authority of the Church during persecutions.

After thus making all ecclesiastical ministry to rest on a simple delegation of Princes, without so much as ordination or ecclesiastical consecration being necessary on the occasion, he obviates an objection which immediately occurs ; to wit, how Pastors exercised their authority under Princes that were not Christians ; and answers conformably to his principles, that there was no remedy then for the correction of vice, or appointing of ministers in the Church of God ; but the people accepted of such as were presented to them by the apostles, or others whom they looked upon as filled with the spirit of God, and this of their own voluntary will ; and afterwards gave ear to them, as a good people ready to obey the advice of good counsellors. This is what Cranmer spoke in an assembly of bishops ; and this was the notion he had of that divine power which Jesus Christ gave to his ministers.

44. — Cranmer always persisted in these Sentiments.

I am under no necessity of rejecting this prodigy of doctrine so strongly refuted by Calvin and all the other Protestants, since Mr. Burnet himself blushes for Cranmer, and is willing to take for a retractation of this opinion, what he elsewhere signed concerning the divine institution of bishops. But, besides what has already appeared, that his subscriptions are not always a proof of his real sentiments, I must tell Mr. Burnet, that he conceals from us, with too much artifice, Cranmer's true notions. It made not against him, though the institution of bishops and priests was divine, and he acknowledges this truth in that very piece of which we have just produced the extract. For at the close of this ninth

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC, 279 question, it is expressly mentioned, that " all of them were agreed," and consequently Cranmer, " that the apostles had received from God the power of creating bishops or pastors*. Neither could it be denied, without too manifestly contradicting the Gospel. But what Cranmer and his adherents pretended was, that Jesus Christ had instituted pastors to exercise their power dependency of the prince in every function ; which certainly is the most monstrous and the most scandalous flattery that ever entered into the heart of man.

45. — The dogma, -which makes all Ecclesiastical power flow from the Crown, reduced to practice.

Accordingly, it thence came to pass, that Henry VIII. gave the bishops power to visit their diocese with this preface : — " That all jurisdiction, as well ecclesiastical as secular, proceeded from the regal power, as from the first foundation of all magistracy in all kingdoms ; that those who, till then, had exercised this power precariously , were to acknowledge it as coming from the liberality of the prince, ami give it up to him when he should think Jit ; .and upon these grounds he gives power to such a bishop, as to the King's vicar, to visit his diocese by the regal authority ; and to promote whom he shall judge proper to holy orders, and even priesthood ; and, in short, to exercise all the episcopal functions, with power to subdelegate if he thought it necessary t •

46. — Cranmer acts conformably to this dogma, — the only one wherein the Reformation has not varied.

Let us say nothing against a doctrine which destroys itself by its own enormity, and only take notice of that horrid proposition which makes the power of bishops so to flow from that of the King, that it is even revocable at his will. Cranmer was so persuaded of this royal power, that he was not ashamed, himself archbishop of Canterbury, and primate of the whole Church of England, to take out a new commission of the same from under Edward VI., though but a child, when he reformed the Church according to his own model : and of all the articles published by Henry, this was the only one he retained^.

f Towers Commis. Ibid. xiv. p. IS I. J Bi.wi. part 2. ib. i. p. G.

47. — Queen Elizabeth's scruple concerning the power given her in the Church.

This power was carried to such a pitch in the English Reformation, that Elizabeth had some scruples about it ; and the horror men had of seeing a woman the Church's supreme head, and the fountain of all pastoral power, whereof, by her sex, she was incapable, opened their eyes at length to see, in some measure, the excesses to which they had been carried²⁶. But we shall see, without diminishing the force, or removing the grounds of it, they did no more than just palliate the matter ; nor can Mr. Burnet, at this day, but lament to see excommunication, belonging only to the spiritual cognisance, and which ought to have been reserved for the bishop with the assistance of the clergy, by a fatal neglect given over to secular tribunals ; that is, not only to Kings, but likewise to their officers; — "an error (proceeds this author) grown since into so formed a strength, that it is easier to see what is amiss, than to know how to rectify it."

48. — A manifest contradiction in the English doctrine.

And, certainly, I do not conceive any thing can be imagined more contradictory, than to deny their Kings, on one side, the administration of the word and sacraments ; and grant them, on the other, excommunication, which, in reality, is nothing else but God's word armed with the censure which comes from Heaven, and one of the most essential parts of the administration of the sacraments ; since, undoubtedly, the right of depriving the faithful of them can appertain to none else but those who are appointed by God to give them to the people. But the Church of England went much further, inasmuch as she has attributed to her King's and to the secular authority, the right of making rituals and liturgies, and even of giving final judgment without further appeal, in points of faith ; that is, of that which is most essential in the administration of the sacraments ; and the most inseparably annexed to the preaching of God's word. And as well under Henry VIII. as in the succeeding reigns, we find no ritual, no confession of faith, no liturgy, which derives not their ultimate sanction and force from the authority of the King and parliament, as the sequel will make plain. They went even to that excess, that, whereas the orthodox emperors, if formerly they made any Constitutions concerning faith, either they made them in order to put * Burnet; lib, iii, p. 386, 376. part ii. lib. i. p. 44,

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 281 in execution Church decrees, or at least waited for the confirmation of their ordinances. In England they taught, on the contrary, " that the decrees of councils, in points of faith, were not laws, nor of any force, till they were ratified by princes* ;" and this was the fine idea which Cranmer gave of Church decisions in a discourse of his reported by Mr. Burnet.

49. — Cranmefs flattery, and Henry's disorders, the cause of the English Reformation.

This Reformation, therefore, took its rise from Henry's vices, and the flatteries of this archbishop. Mr. Burnet takes great pains to heap up examples of very vicious princes, whom God has made subservient to great endsf. Who questions it ? But without examining the histories he quotes, where he blends truth with falsehood, and what is certain witli what is doubtful ; can he shew one only example, where God, intending to reveal to men some important, and, during so many ages, unknown truth — not to say utterly unheard of — ever did choose so scandalous a King as Henry VIII., and so base, so corrupt a bishop as Cranmer ? If the schism of England, in the English Reformation, be a divine work, nothing in it is more divine than the King's ecclesiastical supremacy, since, by that, not only did commence the breach with Rome, the necessary foundation, according to Protestants, of every good reformation, but that also is the only point wherein they have never varied since the schism. God made choice of Henry VIII. to introduce this new article of faith among Christians, and, withal, made choice of this very prince to be a remarkable instance of his most profound and most terrible judgments ; not of that sort by which he subverts monarchies, and gives to impious Kings a manifestly disastrous end; but of that other, whereby, delivering them over to their flatterers and passions, he suffers them to run headlong into the utmost excess of wilful blindness. Meantime, while he thinks fit, he withholds them on this brink, in order to make manifest in them those mysteries of his counsels he is willing men should know. Henry VIII. attempts nothing against the other Catholic verities. All his attacks are levelled only at St. Peter's chair ; by that, it became apparent to the whole universe, that this prince's design was only to revenge himself on that pontifical power which had condemned him, and that his hatred was his sole rule of faith.

50. — It concerns not Faith to examine the conduct of Clement VI., and his methods of proceeding.

After that, I am under no necessity of examining all Mr. Burnet relates, whether as to the intrigues of Conclaves, or the behaviour of Popes, or the artifices of Clement VII. What advantage can he draw from thence? Neither Clement, nor the other Popes are, amongst us, the authors of any new article of faith. Nor have they separated us from the holy Society in which we were baptized ; nor have they taught us to condemn our ancient pastors. In a word, they make no sect among us, and their vocation has nothing in it that is extraordinary. If they enter not by the door, which is always open in the Church, that is, by canonical ways, or, if they make ill use of the ordinary and lawful ministry intrusted to them from above, this is the very case specified in the Gospel*, of honouring their chair without approving, or imitating the persons. Nor ought I at all concern myself whether Julius II.'s dispensation were well given, nor whether Clement VII. could, or ought to revoke it, and annul the marriage. For, although I look upon it as certain, that this last Pope acted well in the main, and, in my opinion, nothingcan be blamed on this occasion but, at the most, his policy, which was at one time too timorous, and at another too hasty; this is not a question for me to decide in this place, nor a pretest for impeaching the Church of Rome of error. These matters of dispensation are often regulated by simple probabilities; nor is one obliged to look therein for the certainty of faith, whereof they are not always even capable. But since Mr. Burnet makes from this a capital accusation against the Church of Rome, I cannot, methinks, but dwell a little upon it.

51. — The account of the Marriage Dispute entered upon — The fact is laid down — The vain pretexts with which Henry covered his passion.

It is a fact, notoriously known, that Henry VII. had obtained a dispensation from Julius II. to marry the widow of Arthur, his eldest son, to Henry, his second son and successor. This Prince, alter he had seen all the reasons for doubting, consummated, when a King and at age, this marriage, with the unanimous consent of all the estates of his realm, the 3d of June, 1509, that is, six weeks after his coming to the crown f. Twenty years elapsed without calling in question a marriage so sincerely and honestly contracted. Henry, falling in love * Matth. xxiii. 2. f Burn. p. i. lib, ii. p. 36.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 283 with Anne Boleyn, called conscience in to assist his passion ; and his marriage becoming odious to him, at the same time became doubtful and suspected. Meanwhile, a Princess had sprung from this marriage, who from her infancy had been acknowledged heir of the kingdom*; so that the pretext which Henry took for breaking off the marriage, lest, said he, the succession of the realm should be doubtful, was a mere trick, since none dreamed of disputing it with his daughter, Marv, who, in fact, was unanimously owned for Queen, when the order of birth called her to the crown. On the contrary, if anything could obstruct the succession of this great kingdom, it was Henry's doubt ; and, it appears, that all he published relating to the doubtfulness of his succession, was nothing but a cloak, as well for his new amour, as for the disgust he had taken to the Queen his wife, on account of some infirmities she had contracted, as Mr. Burnet himself owns f.

52. — Julius's dispensation attacked by Arguments from fact and right. A Prince, whom passion rules, would have it believed he has reason on his side : so to please Henry, the dispensation, on which his marriage was grounded, was attacked several ways, some taken from fact, others from right. As to fact, the dispensation was maintained to be null, because granted on false allegations. But as these arguments of fact, reduced to these minute niceties, were over-ruled by the favourable condition of a marriage that had subsisted so many years ; those from right were chiefly insisted on, and the dispensation maintained null, as granted in prejudice to the law of God, which the Pope could not dispense with.

53.— Arguments of right grounded on Leviticus— The state of the question. The question was, whether or no the prohibition in Leviticus, not to contract within certain degrees of consanguinity or affinity, and, among others, that of marrying the* brother's widow, did so appertain to the law of nature, as to be obligatory in the Gospel law %. The reason for doubting was, because we do not read that God ever dispensed with what was purely of the law of nature: for example, since the multiplication of mankind, there has been no instance of God's permitting the marriage of brother and sister, nor others of this nature in the first degree, whether ascending, or descending, or collateral. Now, there was an express law in Deu- * Burn. p. i. lib. ii. p. 36. f Ibid. J Levit. xviii. 20.

teronomy²⁷, which, in certain cases, enjoined a brother to take his sister-in-law and the widow of his brother to wife. God, therefore, not destroying nature, which he is the author of, gave thereby to understand that this marriage was not of that sort which nature rejects ; and this was the foundation which Julius II. 's dispensation was grounded upon.

54. — The Protestants of Germany favourable to Julius's dispensation, and Henry's first marriage.

We must do the Protestants of Germany this justice: Henry could never obtain from them the approbation of his new marriage, nor the condemnation of Julius II. 's dispensation. When this affair was spoken of in a solemn embassy, which this Prince sent to Germany, in order to join himself to the Protestant confederacy, Melancthon decided thus: "We have not been of the English Ambassador's opinion ; for, we believe, the law of not wedding a brother's wife, is susceptible of dispensation, although we do not believe it to be abolished f." And, again, more concisely in another place : " The Ambassadors pretend, that the prohibition against marrying a brother's wife is indispensable ; and we, on the contrary, maintain it may be dispensed with J." This was exactly what they stood for at Rome, and Clement VII. 's definitive sentence against the divorce rested on this foundation.

55. — Bucer of the same opinion.

Bucer was of the same opinion upon the same motives ; and we learn from Mr. Burnet, that, according to this author, one of England's Reformers, " The law of Leviticus did not bind, and could not be moral, because God hath dispensed with it²⁸."

56. — Zuinglius and Calvin of the contrary opinion.

Zuinglius and Calvin, with their disciples, were favourable to the King of England ; and it is not unlikely but that a design of settling their doctrine in that kingdom, contributed not a little to their complaisance : but the Lutherans sided not with them, although Mr. Burnet makes them to vary a little in the matter : At first, " they thought (says he) the laws in Leviticus were not moral, and did not oblige Christians ; yet, after much disputing, they were induced to change their

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 285 minds, but could not be brought to think that a marriage once made might be annulled *."

57. — The odd decision of the Lutherans.

And truly their decision, as reported by Mr. Burnet, is a very odd one ; since, after their owning that " The law of Leviticus is divine, natural, and moral, and to be observed as such in all churches, insomuch that a marriage, contracted contrary to this law with a brother's widow, is incestuous f ;" they conclude, nevertheless, that this marriage ought not to be broken ; with some doubt at first, but, at length, by a final and definitive determination, as Mr. Burnet owns; so that an incestuous marriage, a marriage made contrary to divine, moral, and natural laws, which still remain in their full force throughout the whole Christian Church, ought to subsist, in their judgment ; nor is a divorce, in this case, allowable.

58. — Remarks on the conformity of the Protestants' ojrinions loith the sentence of Clement VII.

This decision of the Lutherans is, by Mr. Burnet, referred to the year 1530: that of Melancthon, just mentioned, is posterior, and in 1536. However, it is a favourable precedent for Julius II.'s dispensation, and the sentence of Clement VII., that these Popes have met with defenders among those who sought nothing more than to censure their proceedings at any rate. The Protestants of Germany were so resolute in this sentiment that, for all the ties and interests Cranmer had then with them, he could engage none on his master's side, but only his brother-in-law, Osiander, whose authority will hereafter appear of no great weight.

59. — Henry bribes some Catholic Doctors.

As for Catholics, Mr. Burnet acquaints us that Henry VIII. had bribed two or three Cardinals. Without informing myself of the truth of these facts, I shall observe, only, that a cause must be bad indeed that stands in need of such infamous supports. And as for the Doctors, whose subscriptions Mr. Burnet boasts to us, where is the wonder that, in so corrupted an age, so great a King was able to find those who were not proof against his presents and solicitations ? Our historian will not allow us to call in cpaestion the autho-²⁹ rity of Fra- Paolo, nor of Thuanus³⁰. Let him give ear to these two historians. One says, " that Henry having consulted in Italy, in Germany, and in France, he found one part of the divines favourable, and the other contrary. That the greatest number of those of Paris were for him, and many believed they had done it more from the persuasion of the King's money than that of his arguments^." The other says, " that Heni'y made diligent inquiry into the opinions of divines, and in particular of those at Paris, and the report ran, that these being gained by money, had subscribed in favour of the divorce']:."

60. — Concerning the pretended Consultation of the Paris Faculty of Divinity.

I will not decide whether the conclusion of the Faculty of Divinity, at Paris, produced by Mr. Burnet³¹ in favour of Henry's pretensions, be true or no ; others will take this cpaestion in hand : this only shall I say, that it is very much to be suspected, as well on account of the style, far different from that which the faculty is accustomed to make use of, as because Mr. Burnet's conclusion is dated the 2nd of July, 1530, at the Mathurins ; whereas, at that time, and for some years before, the assemblies of the faculty were held commonly in the Sorbonne.

61. — The testimony of the Lawyer, Charles du Moulin.

In the notes which Charles du Moulin, that renowned civilian, has made on Decius^ Consultations, he speaks of the debate of the Doctors of Divinity at Paris, in favour of the King of England, the 1st of June, 1530, but this author places it in the Sorbonne||. He makes but little account of this declaration, wherein the party that favoured the King of England carried it by fifty-three votes against forty-two ; " which majority of eight voices (says he) deserved no great weight, on account of the English angels of gold which were distributed for the purchase of it : this (he affirms) he knew from the attestations which the President du Fresne and Poliot had given in by order of Francis I." Whence he concludes, the true judgment of the Sorbonne, that is, their genuine and unbought judgment, was that which favoured the King's marriage with Catherine. It is, moreover, very

$ Tint. Hist, lib. i. An, 1534, p. 20. § Rec. part i. lib. ii. n. 34. p. 89.

II Not. ad Cons. 602.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 287 certain that, during- the deliberation, Francis, who then favoured the King of England, had charged M. Lisset, the first President, to solicit the Doctors in his behalf, as appears by the original letters still kept in the King^ library, wherein the President gives an account of his diligent compliance. Whether, then, this deliberation was made by the faculty in body assembled, or whether it was only the judgment of several Doctors published in England under the name of the faculty, as happens in like cases, is a matter which I am not interested in examining into at present. It is apparent enough that the King of England's conscience was rather burdened than eased by such consultations, carried on by intrigue, by money, and by the authority of two so great monarchs. The rest of them, alleged by our author, were not transacted with more integrity. Mr. Burnet himself assures us, " that the King of England's agent in Italy, in many of his letters, said that, if he had money enough, he did not doubt but he should get the hands of all the divines in Italy*." Money, therefore, not the good-will, was wantingf. But not to dwell any longer on the minute stories Mr. Burnet is so triflingly circumstantial in, there is nobody but will own that Clement VII. had been too unworthy of his place, if in an affair of this importance, he had shewn the least regard to these mercenary consultations.

62. — Reasons for the decision of Clement VII.

And, indeed, the question was determined on more solid principles. It appeared, clearly, that the prohibition of Leviticus bore not the character of a natural and indispensable law, since God derogated from it in other places. The dispensation of Julius II., grounded on this reason, had so probable a foundation, that it appeared such even to the Protestants of Germany. No matter what diversity of sentiments there might have been on this subject, it was sufficient that the dispensation was not evidently contrary to the divine laws, which oblige Christians. This matter, then, was of the nature~of such things, wherein all depends on the prudence of superiors, where sincerity and uprightness of heart must give all the repose conscience can have. It was also but too manifest that, had it not been for Henry VIII. 's new fit of love, the Church never had been troubled with the shameful proposal of a divorce, after a marriage contracted and continued with a good conscience so many years. Here is the knot of the affair ; and without speaking of the process, wherein, perchance, policy, good or bad, might intervene, Clement VII. 's decision, when all is said, will be a testimony to future ages, that the Church knows not how to flatter the passions of Princes, nor approve their scandalous proceedings.

63. — Two points of Reformation under Henry VIII., according to Mr. Burnet.

We might here conclude what concerns the reign of Henry VIII., did not Mr. Burnet oblige us to consider two commencements of Reformation, which he remarks at this time : one is, his putting the Scriptures into the hands of the people ; the other, his shewing that every nation might reform itself independently of all others.

64. — First Point — The reading of the Scriptures how granted to the people under Henry V III.

As for what regards the Bible ; this is what Henry VIII. said in 1540, in his Preface to the Exposition of the Christian Faith above spoken of: "That, whereas there were some teachers whose office it was to instruct the people ; so the rest ought to be taught, and to those it was not necessary to read the Scriptures ; and that, therefore, he had restrained it from a great many, esteeming it sufficient for such to hear the doctrine of the Scriptures taught by their preachers." Afterwards he allowed the reading of them that same year, upon condition " that his subjects should not presume to expound, or take arguments from Scripture³² ;" which was obliging them anew to refer themselves to the pastors of the Church for Scripture interpretations! ; in which case it is agreed the reading of this divine book must undoubtedly be very wholesome. Moreover, if at that time the Bible was translated into the vulgar language, there was nothing new in that practice. We have the like versions for the use of Catholics in ages preceding the pretended Reformation ; nor is that a point of our controversies.

65. — Whether the progress of the Reformation be owing to the reading of the Scriptures, and in what manner.

Mr. Burnet, pretending to shew, that the progress of the new

VII. J THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 289

Reformation was owing to the reading of Scripture allowed to the people, ought to have stated that this reading was preceded by artful and cunning preachers, who had filled their heads with new interpretations. In this manner was it that an ignorant and headstrong people found, indeed, nothing in Scripture but those errors they had been prepossessed with: and what hastened and completed their ruin was the rashness inspired into them, of every man's deciding for himself which was the true sense of Scripture, of every man's making for himself his own creed. Thus it was that ignorant and prejudiced people found, in Scripture, the pretended Reformation : but what man is there of the least sincerity that will deny me, that, by the same means, they would as clearly have found Arianism in it, as they conceived they did Lutheranism or Calvinism ?

66. — How men are deceived by Scripture ill-interpreted.

When this notion is once put into the heads of the ignorant, that all is clear in Scripture, that they understand it in all that is necessary for them, and, therefore, that the judgment of all pastors and of all ages is quite needless to them, they take for certain truth the first sense that offers, and what they are accustomed to always appears the most genuine. But, they ought to be made sensible that, in this case, it is the letter often which kills, and in those very passages, which appear the most plain, God has often hid the greatest and most awful mysteries.

67. — Proof from Mr. Burnet of the snares laid for the unlearned in the pretended perspicuity of Scripture.

For example, Mr. Burnet proposes to us this text, " Drink ye all of this," as one of the most clear that can be imagined, and which leads us the most directly to the necessity of both kinds. But it will now appear to him, from what he owns himself, that what he thinks so plain becomes a snare to the ignorant; for these words " Drink ye all of this," in the institution of the Eucharist, are not, after all, more plain than these in the institution of the Passover: " Thus shall ye eat the paschal lamb, with your loins girded, and your staff in your hand³³ :" consequently, standing; and in the posture of people ready to depart, for that, indeed, was the spirit of this Sacrament. Nevertheless, we are assured by Mr. Burnetf , this was not practised by the Jews, who, afterwards, changed this custom into the common table posture, and lay down,

VOL.1. U

290 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK according to the custom of the country, at the eating of the lamb, as at other meals ; and that this change, which they made in the Divine institution, we are sure was not criminal, since our Saviour made no scruple in complying with it³⁴. I ask him in this case, whether a man who should have taken this divine commandment literally, without consulting the tradition and interpretation of the Church, would not have found in it his certain death, since he would have found in it the condemnation of Jesus Christt; and whereas this author adds afterwards, it seemed reasonable to allow the Christian Church the like power in such things with the Jewish, why then should a Christian, in the new Passover, believe he has seen everything relating to the Supper, upon reading the words only of the institution ? and will not he be obliged to examine, besides these words, the tradition of the Church, in order to know what she always looked upon as necessary and indispensable in the Communion ? Without pushing this examination any further, this is enough to show Mr. Burnet they must of necessity come into it ; nor can the pretended perspicuity, which the illiterate think they find in these words, " Drink ye all of this," be anything but an illusion.

68. — Henry VIII.'s second point of Reformation according to Mr. Burnet; that the Church of England acted by a schismatical principle, when she believed she could regulate her Faith independently of all the rest of the Church.

The second ground of Reformation, pretended to be laid by Henry VIII., Mr. Burnet makes to consist in the establishment of this principle, that every national Church was a complete body within itself, so that the Church of England, with the authority and concurrence of their head and King, might examine and reform all errors and corruptions, whether in doctrine or worship. These are fine words. Discover but their meaning, and you will find that such a Reformation is nothing but a schism. A nation, which looks on itself as a complete body, which regulates its faith, in particular, without regard to what the rest of the Church believes, is a nation which separates itself from the universal Church, and renounces unity of faith and sentiments, so much recommended to the Church by Jesus Christ and his Apostles. When a Church thus cantoned makes the King her head, she gives herself, in matters of religion, a principle of unity, which

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 291

Jesus Christ and the Gospel have not established³⁵ ; changes the Church into a body politic, and gives room to erect as many separate Churches, as states may be formed. This idea of Reformation and Church was first conceived in the brain of Henry VIII. and his flatterers, nor had Christians ever before been acquainted with it.

69. — Whether the Church of England in this followed the ancient Church, as Mr. Burnet pretends it did.

We are told, that all the provincial councils in the ancient Church were so many precedents for this, who condemned heresies, and reformed abusesf. But this is visibly imposing on mankind. True it is, provincial councils were obliged immediately to condemn heresies which arose in their respective countries: for in order to suppress them, ought they to have waited till the contagion had spread and alarmed the whole Church? Nor is that our question. What he should have made appear to us is, that these Churches looked on themselves as a complete body, in the same manner they do in England; and reformed their doctrine, without taking for their rule what the whole body of the Church unanimously did believe. Of this, I say, no example will ever be produced. When the African Fathers condemned the infant heresy of Celestius and Pelagius, they laid for a foundation the prohibition of interpreting the Holy Scripture otherwise than the Cathdlic Church, spread over the whole earth, had always interpreted and understood it. Alexander of Alexandria laid down the same foundation against Arius, when, condemning him, he said: " We know but one Catholic' and Apostolic Church, which, incapable of being subverted by the world's whole power, overthrows every impiety and every heresy." And again, " In every one of these articles we believe what hath pleased the Apostolic Churchy." Thus did the Bishops and particular Councils condemn heresies by a prior judgment, by conforming themselves to the common faith of the whole body. These decrees were sent to all churches, and from this unity they drew their utmost force.

70. Whether the Church of England had reason to believe^ that now-a-days it is too difficult a thing to consult the Faith of the whole Church.

But, say they, the remedy of an universal council, easy as u 2 it was under the Roman empire, when the Churches had one common sovereign, is become too difficult, now that Christendom is divided into so many states : another fallacy. For, in the first place, the consent of Churches may be declared otherwise than by general councils : witness, in St. Cyprian, the condemnation of Novatian ; witness, that of Paul of Samosata, of whom it was written, that he had been condemned by the council and judgment of all the Bishops of the world, because all had consented to the council held against him at Antioch³⁶ ; lastly, witness the Pelagians, and so many other heresies, which, without a general council, have been sufficiently condemned by the united authority of the Pope and all the Bishops. When the necessities of the Church required a general council to be assembled, the Holy Ghost always provided means ; and so many councils, as have been held since the fall of the Roman empire, have made it plainly appear, that to assemble the pastors when requisite, there needed not its assistance. The reason is because, in the Catholic Church there is a principle of unity independent of the kings of the earth. To deny this, is making the Church their captive, and rendering the heavenly government, instituted by Jesus Christ, defective. But the English Protestants would not acknowledge this unity, because the Holy See is the external and common bond thereof; and it was more agreeable to them to have, in matters of religion, their king for their head, than to own, in St. Peter js chair, a principle by God established for the unity of all Christians.

71. — All sorts of novelties crept into England in spite of the severities of Henry VIII. — The reason why.

The Six Articles published by the authority of King and Parliament had the force of law during the whole reign of Henry VIII. But what sway over consciences can decrees concerning religion have, which, drawing all their strength from regal authority, to which God has intrusted no such commission, have nothing in them but what is political ? Though Henry VIII. inforced them with innumerable executions, and cruelly put to death, not only Catholics, who detested his supremacy, but also the Lutherans and Zuinglians, who impugned the other articles of his faith, all manner of errors crept insensibly into England, nor did the people any longer know what to stand to, when they saw St. Peter's chair despised, from whence it was notorious

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 293 faith first came to this great isle, whether the conversion of its inhabitants under Pope Eleutherius be considered, or that of the English, which was procured by St. Gregory the Great.

The whole establishment of the Church of England, the whole order of her discipline, — the whole disposition of the hierarchy in this kingdom ; in a word, the mission, as well as the consecration of bishops, was so certainly derived from this great Pope and the chair of St. Peter, or from bishops holding him for the head of their communion, that the English could not renounce this power without weakening among them even the origin of Christianity, and all the authority of ancient traditions.

72. — < They argued in England from false principles, when they rejected the Pope's Supremacy.

When they set about rejecting the authority of the Holy See in England, it was observed by them " that Gregory the Great had exclaimed against the ambition of that title of Universal Bishop, and refused it much about the time that England received the faith from those he sent over ; whence concluded Cranmer and his associates, "When our ancestors received the faith, the authority of the See of Rome was within the limits of a laudable moderation *."

73. — Whether St. Gregory Pope, under whom the English were converted, had different notions of the authority of his See from what we have.

Not to dispute, in vain, on this title of Universal which the Popes never do assume, and may be more or less supportable according to the different senses it is taken in ; let us consider for a moment what St. Gregory, who rejected it, believed nevertheless relating to the authority of his See. Two passages known to the whole world will decide this question. " As for what concerns (says he) the Church of Constantinople, who questions its being subjected to the See Apostolic, which neither the Emperor nor our brother Eusebius, bishop of that city, do cease to acknowledge t?" And in the following letter, speaking of the primate of Africa, as to what he says, "that he is subject to the See Apostolic, I know no bishop that is not subject to it when delinquent. Furthermore, when delinquency requires not otherwise, we are all³⁷ brethren according to the law of humility *." Here, then, have we all bishops manifestly subject to the authority and correction of the Holy See, and this authority acknowledged even by the Church of Constantinople, at that time the second Church of the whole world in dignity and power. Here is the foundation of the pontifical power; the rest, which custom or toleration, or, if you please, even abuse might have introduced or increased, might be preserved, or suffered, or extended more or less, as order, peace, and public tranquillity should require. Christianity was-.born in England with the confession of this authority. Henry VIII. could not endure it, even with this laudable moderation owned by Cranmer in St. Gregory: his passion and policy made him annex it to his crown, and by this so strange an innovation, he opened the way for all that followed.

74.— Death of Henry VIII. Some sa)r this unhappy Prince, towards the end of his days, felt some remorse for the excesses he had run into; and, in order to calm his conscience, sent for some bishops to him. I vouch it not ; those who, in scandalous sinners, but particularly in Kings, are for discovering such biting stings of conscience as appeared in an Antiochus, are not acquainted with all God's ways, nor reflect sufficiently on that deadly insensibility and false peace he sometimes suffers his greatest enemies to fall into. Be that as it will, should Henry have consulted his bishops, what could be expected from a body which had enslaved the Church ? Whatever indications Henry might give of desiring to be sincerely advised in this juncture, he could not restore to the bishops that liberty which his cruelties had deprived them of; dreadful to them were the vicissitudes of temper this Prince was subject to ; and he who could not brook truth from the mouth of Thomas More, his Chancellor, nor from the holy Bishop of Rochester, both of whom he put to death for speaking it freely to him, never more deserved to hear it.

75. — Everything is changed after his death. — The young King's Guardian is a Zuinglian. — 1547, 1548.

In this state hedied ; and no wonder if, after his death, things grew worse The foundations once shaken, by little and little, all goes to ruin. Edward VI., his only son> succeeded him according to the law of the land. As he was

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 295 scarce ten years old, the kingdom was governed by a Council, appointed by the deceased King; but Edward Seymour, brother to Queen Jane, and the King's uncle by the mother's side, had the chief authority, with the title of Protector of the Kingdom of England. He was a Zuinglian in his heart, and Cranmer was his bosom friend. This Archbishop then threw off the mask, nor did he longer conceal any of that venom which lay lurking in his heart against the Church.

76.- — The Reformation founded on the ruin of Ecclesiastical

Authority.

In order to prepare the way for their intended reformation under the Kind's name, they set out by declaring him, as Henry had been before, the supreme head of the Church of England in spirituals and temporals *. In Henry's time it was a settled maxim, that the King was Pope in England. But far different prerogatives were conferred on this new papacy than the Pope had ever pretended to. The bishops took out new commissions from Edward, revocable at the King's pleasure, as heretofore had been enjoined in King Henry's time ; and, in order to advance the reformation, it was judged necessary to keep them under the subjection of an arbitrary power. The Archbishop of Canterbury, and primate of all England, was the first to bend his neck under this shameful yoke. This is not to be Avondered at, since he was the person who inspired all these sentiments : the rest did but follow the pernicious example he set to them f . This was somewhat moderated afterwards, and the Bishops were obliged to look upon it as a favour to hold their bishopricks of the King during life J, In the tenor of their commissions, it was plainly expressed, as under Henry, pursuant to Cranmer's doctrine, that the episcopal power, as well as that of the secular magistracy, flowed from the crown as from its source, that the bishops exercised it only precariously as delegates in the King's name, and which they were to deliver up again when it should please him to call for it, from whom they had received it , " The King gave them faculties to ordain and deprive ministers, inflict censures and punish scandalous persons, and to do all the other parts of the episcopal function, all which they were to execute and do in the King's name and under his authority ||." At the same time, it Mras owned, that this pastoral charge was com-³⁸³⁹ mitted to bishops by the word of God. It was necessary to make use of this word to give themselves credit. But although nothing was found therein for the regal power, except what related to the concerns of this world, it was nevertheless extended to what is most sacred in the pastoral charge. Commissions for consecrating bishops were issued out by the King, and directed to whom he pleased : so that, according to this new hierarchy, as the bishops were not consecrated but by the royal authority, so by the same only could they proceed to ordination *. Even the form and prayers of ordination, as well of bishops as of priests, were regulated by Parliament. The same was done in respect to the liturgy and public service, and the whole administration of the sacraments. In a word, all was subject to the King, and, upon abolishing the ancient law, the Parliament, it seems, was to make a new body of canons. All these attempts were grounded on a maxim which the Parliament of England had laid down for a new article of their faith, viz., that all jurisdiction, both spiritual and temporal, was derived from the King, as from its source f.

77. — Sequel of the ruin of Ecclesiastical Authority.

It is not here to our purpose to deplore the calamities of the Church thus enslaved, and shamefully degraded by her own ministers. Our business is to relate facts, and a bare relation of them will suffice to shew their enormity, " Not long after, the King declared he intended to visit his kingdom, therefore, neither the archbishops nor any other should exercise any jurisdiction while that visitation lasted^. There was proclamation from the King, commanding all to remember him in the public prayers as the supreme head of the Church of England, which was to be observed under the pains of excommunication, sequestration, or deprivation⁴⁰." Thus, together with ecclesiastical censures the whole pastoral authority is openly invaded by the King, and the most sacred depositum of the sanctuary wrested from the priestly order, without sparing even that of faith, which the Apostles had left to their successors.

78. — Reflection on the miserable beginnings of the Re formation, wherein the sacred order had no share in the affairs of Religion and Faith.

I cannot but stop here a moment to consider the ground-

% Ibid. p. 27; and Col. n. 7. § Ibid. p. 29.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 297 work of the English Reformation, " that work of light, a full and distinct narrative whereof makes its apology as well as history." The Church of England glories above all the other Churches of the Reformation, for having proceeded orderly and by lawful assemblies. To afford some colour for this boasting, it was, in the first place, and above all, necessary that ecclesiastics should have had the chief share in the management of this great alteration in religion. But quite the reverse was done, and ever since the time of Henry VIII. " they were cut off from meddling with it, except as they were authorized by the King⁴¹." All the complaint they made amounted to no more than that an encroachment was made on their privileges ; as if for them to meddle with religion were only a privilege, and not essential to the very being of the ecclesiastical order.

But perchance one may imagine they met with better treatment under Edward, when, as Mr. Burnet pretends, the Reformation was set on a more solid basis. Quite the contrary ; they begged it as a favour of the Parliament, " at least, that matters of religion should not be determined till they had been consulted, and had reported their opinions and reasons-f⁴²." What a wretched state had they brought themselves to, not to intermeddle otherwise than by barely offering their opinions ; they who were the proper judges in such cases, and of whom Christ had said. " He that hears you, hears me !" but this, says our historian, could not be obtained^. But, at least it may be allowed them to decide on articles of faith, of which they were the preachers. By no means. The King's councillors resolved to follow the method begun by the late King, of sending visiters over England with ecclesiastical injunctions and articles of faith ; and it was the business of the King's council to regulate the articles of religion that were to be proposed to the people by his authority⁴³. Meanwhile, the Six Articles of Henry VIII. were to be adhered to, until they should think better of the matter ; nor were they ashamed to require of the bishops an express declaration, " to make profession of such doctrine as afterwards, at any time, should be certified by the archbishop to the other bishops in the King's name||." Besides, it was but too evident the clergy were only named for formsake, since all was done in the King^ name.

$ Ibid. p. 26. || Ibid. p. 59.

298 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK

79. — The King is made absolute master of the Pulpit, and forbids Preaching all over his Kingdom till further orders.

It seems we need say no more, after the relation of such great excesses. But lamentable as it is, let us continue it. It is in some manner labouring to heal the Church's wounds to bewail them in the sight of God. The King took to himself so absolute an authority over the word and preaching, that a proclamation was issued, by which none were to preach without licence from the King or his visiters — the archbishop of Canterbury or the bishop of the diocese ; so that the chief right was in the King, nor had the bishops, but by his permission only, any share therein. Some time after, the Council allows those to preach who were lively to set forth the pure word of God after such sort as the Holy Ghost should for the time put in the preacher's mind⁴⁴. The Council, it seems, had changed their minds ; after they had made preaching depend on the regal power, they here leave it to the discretion of those who should imagine themselves filled with the Holy Ghost, and by this means all fanatics are admitted to it. The year following they changed again. " To restrain the clashing and contention of pulpits, the power of granting licences to preach was taken from the bishops of each diocese, so that none might give them but the King and the archbishopiV By this means it is an easy matter to authorise the preaching up of any heresy. But the effects of this restraint are not what we are now upon. What ought to be considered is, that the whole authority of the word was delivered up to the Prince alone. Things were carried so far, that after declaring to the people that the King had employed learned men to take away all subjects of controversies, " till the order now preparing should be set forth, he did inhibit all manner of persons to preach in any public audience^." Here then was preaching suspended throughout the whole kingdom, the bishops silenced by the King's proclamation, and all waiting in suspense, ignorant what religion the King would think fit to coin for them. " To this was tacked an admonition, exhorting all persons to receive with submission the orders that should, in a short time, be sent down to them." Thus was the English Reformation brought about ; that work of light, a distinct narrative whereof makes, according to Mr. Burnet, its history as well as apology.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 299

80. — The Six Articles abolished.

These preparations being thus made, the English Reformation was set on foot, in the King's name, by the Duke of Somerset and Cranmer ; and here the regal power pulled down that faith which the regal power had before set up. The Six Articles, which Henry VIII. had caused to be published with his whole spiritual and temporal authority, were repealed⁴⁵ ; and, notwithstanding all the precautions he had taken in his will to preserve those precious remains of the Catholic religion, and perhaps, in time, to restore it wholly, the Zuinglian doctrine, so much detested by this prince, gained the ascendant.

81. — Peter Martyr called over, and Zuinglianism established.— 1549, 1550, 1551. ;

Peter Martyr, a Florentine, and Bernardin Ochin, afterwards the declared enemy of Jesus Christ's divinity, were called over to begin this Reformation. Both of them, like the rest of the reformers, had exchanged the monastic state for that of wedlock. Peter Martyr was a downright Zuinglian. The doctrine which he proposed in England concerning the Eucharist in 1549, was reduced to these three positions : —

I. There is no transubstantiation.

II. The body and blood of Jesus Christ are not corporeally in the Eucharist, nor under the species of bread and wine.

III. The body and blood of Christ are united to the bread and wine sacramentally, that is, figuratively, or at most, virtuallyf.

82. — Bucer not hearkened- to.

Bucer did not approve the second proposition ; for, as hath been seen, he was for excluding a local Presence, but not a corporeal and substantial one. He maintained that Jesus Christ could not be separated from the Supper, and that he was after such a manner in heaven, as not to be substantially removed out of the Eucharist. Peter Martyr believed it was an illusion to admit a corporeal and substantial presence in the Supper, and not admit in it the reality which Catholics maintained, together with the Lutherans ; and what respect soever he might have for Bucer, the only Protestant he had any consideration for, yet he did not come into his senti-

300 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK ments. A set of articles⁴⁶ was drawn up in England, conformable to Peter Martyr's opinion : it was there specified, " That the body of Jesus Christ was nowhere but in heaven : that he could not be really present in different places ; so that no corporeal or Real Presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist was to be believed." This is what was defined. But, as yet, their faith was not in its utmost perfection, and, in due time, we shall see this article pretty much reformed.

83. — Mr. Burnet's Confession concerning the Belief of the Greek Church,

We are here obliged to Mr. Burnet for owning a thing of no small weight : for he grants us that the Real Presence is acknowledged by the Greek Church. These are his words : " The Lutherans seemed to agree with that which had been the doctrine of the Greek Church, that, in the Sacrament, there was both the substance of bread and wine, and Christ's body likewise j ." Herein he is more sincere than the greatest part of those of his religion ; but, at the same time, opposes a greater authority against the novelties of Peter Martyr.

84. — The Reformers repent themselves of having said that in the 'Reformation of the Liturgy they had acted by the assistance of the Holy Ghost.

Then did the spirit of change entirely possess England. In the reformation of the Liturgy and common prayers, which was made by the authority of Parliament (for God gave ear to none but such), it had been set forth in the preamble to the Act, that the commissioners named by the King to draw them up " had finished the work with one uniform agreement, and bv the aid of the Holy Ghost £." Men were astonished at this expression. But the Reformers had their answer ready, viz. " That this was not so to be understood, as if they" had been inspired by extraordinary assistance ; for then there had been no room for any correction of what was now done §." Now these Reformers were still for correcting and changing on; and never did pretend to frame their religion all at once. And, indeed, very considerable alterations were soon made in this Liturgy, and their chief aim was to deface all the tracks of antiquity that hitherto had been preserved.

J, Ibid. p. 93. § Ibid. p. 94.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 301

85. — All the remains of Antiquity at first retained in the Liturgy are now destroyed.

In the consecration of the Eucharist this prayer had been retained, " With thy Holy Spirit vouchsafe to bless and sanctify these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son *," &c. They were willing to preserve, in this prayer, somewhat of the Church of Rome's Liturgy, which St. Augustin the Monk sent to the English by St. Gregory, had brought in with Christianity. But although they had maimed it by lopping off some words, yet still it was found " too much to favour transubstant.iationf ," or even the corporeal presence, and was afterwards razed out entirely.

86. — England abrogates the Mass, which she had heard from her first conversion to Christianity.

The words of that prayer were yet much stronger, as the Church of England used it at the time she embraced Christianity: for, whereas they had put in the' reformed Liturgy, that these gifts may be unto us the body and blood of Jesus Christ ; in the original it stands thus, that " This oblation be made unto us the body and blood of Jesus Christ." This word made imports a true action of the Holy Ghost, who changes the gifts, conformably to what is said in the other liturgies of antiquity : " Make, O Lord, of this bread, thy own body ; and of this wine, the own blood of thy Son ; changing them by thy Holy Spirit %." And these words, " be made unto us the body and blood," were said in the same spirit with those of Isaiah, " Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given §:" not implying, that the sacred gifts are then only made the body and blood when we receive them, as the Reformers will have it ; but signifying that it is for us they were formed in the Eucharist, as for us they were formed in the Virgin's womb. The English Reformation has corrected everything that too much favoured transubstantiation. The word oblation would likewise have too much favoured a sacrifice : to give the sense of it in some manner, they substituted gifts. At length, it was wholly taken away, and the Church of England would no longer hear that sacred prayer she heard, when, coming forth from the baptismal font, she first received the bread of life.

87. — The Galiican Mass and the rest, in the main, are the same with that of Rome.

If it be insisted on that the holy priest Augustin brought them the Galiican Liturgy or Mass, rather than the Roman, the free choice of either having been left to him by St. Gregory, that alters not the case : the Galiican Mass, said by the Hilaries and the Martins, in the main, differed not from the Roman, nor the rest *. The Kyrie Eleison, the Pater, the Pax, or the blessing, may be given in one place of the Mass rather than another, and such things, as little essential, made the whole difference; and for this reason was it that St. Gregory left the choice thereof to the holy priest he sent intoEnglandf. As well in France, as at Rome, and in all the rest of the Church, a prayer was made to beg the transformation and change of bread and wine into the body and blood ; the merit and mediation of saints with God was everywhere employed, but a merit grounded on the divine mercy ; and a mediation supported by that of Jesus Christ. In all of these Liturgies the dead were frequently prayed for ; and, with respect to all these things, there was but one language in the East and West, in the South and North.

88. — The Reformation corrects itself with respect to Prayers for the Dead.

The English Reformation had retained, in Edward's time, something of prayer for the dead ; for, at funerals, they recommended the soul departed to God's mercy, and, as we now do, they prayed that his sins might be pardoned j". But all these remains of the primitive spirit are abolished : this prayer savoured too much of purga.tory. It is certain it was said from the first ages, both in the East and West: no matter, it was the Pope's Mass, and that of the Church of Rome : it must be banished England, and every word of it turned to the most odious sense.

89. — Sequel of Alterations .

The Church of England, I may venture to say it, altered everything she derived from anticputy⁴⁷. Confirmation must be nothing but a catechism to renew the baptismal vows. But, said Catholics, the fathers, from whom we receive it by a tradition founded on the Acts of the Apostles, and as ancient as the Church, say not so much as a word of this notion

% Burn. p. 77. § Ibid.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 303 of catechism. This is true, and they are forced to own it. Confirmation, nevertheless, is turned to this form, otherwise it would be too papistical. The holy chrism is taken away, which the most ancient fathers had called the instrument of the Holy Ghost *; the use of oil, even in extreme unction, will at last be laid aside, whatever St. James may say ; and though St. Innocent Pope spoke of this unction in the fourth age, it will be decided that extreme unction was not heard of till the tenth century.

90. — Ceremonies and the sign of the Cross retained.

Among these alterations three things remained ; holy ceremonies, the festivals of saints, abstinence and Lent. They thought it but meet that priests, in the public service, should put on a mysterious dress, symbols of purity and the other dispositions which the divine worship does require. Ceremonies were looked upon as a mystical language, and Calvin appeared too extravagant in rejecting themf. The use of the cross was retained, " as a public declaration that they were not ashamed of the cross of Christ J." At first, it was ordered to be kept up "in the sacrament of baptism, and in the office of confirmation, and in the consecration of the sacramental elements, as an outward expression of the veneration'1 they had for this holy ceremony §. Nevertheless, it was at last suppressed, in confirmation and the consecration, in which St. Augustin, with all antiquity, bears testimony that it was ever practised ; nor can I devise why it was retained only in baptism.

91. — England justifies us in the observance of Festivals, even those of Saints.

Mr. Burnet justifies us with relation to fasts and holy-days ; which days he will not have accounted holy of their own nature, nor from any magical virtue in that time ||. This we consent to, and certainly, such a natural or magical virtue, which he thinks himself obliged to reject, never entered into any man's head. He says, " that none of these days were properly dedicated to any saint ; but only to God in remembrance of such saints^." This is our very doctrine. In a word, he everywhere, and in everything, vindicates us on this subject, since he agrees to a conscientious observing of such times⁴⁸. Wherefore, those who object to us, that we

♦ Burn. p. 170. f Ibid. p. 75. % Ibid. p. 79. § Ibid. p. 1?0.

304 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK follow the commandments of men⁴⁹, need but object this to the Church of England, and she will vindicate us.

92. — The same in abstinence from Flesh.

They do no less evidently justify us from the reproach of teaching the doctrine of devils, when we abstain from certain meats for penance sake. Mr. Burnet answers for us, when he blames carnal men, who will not conceive " that the frequent use of fasting, with prayer and true devotion joined to it, is perhaps one of the greatest helps that can be devised to advance one to a spiritual temper of mind, and to promote a holy course of life-f-." Since it is from this spirit, not a kind of temporal policy, as many do imagine, that the Church of England hath forbidden flesh on Fridays and Saturdays, on Vigils, the four Ember-weeks, and throughout Lent, we have nothing on this subject to upbraid one another with. There is only reason to wonder that the King and Parliament should command these holidays and abstinences^ ; that the King should declare what were fish-days, and grant licences and dispensations from these observances⁵⁰ ; and, lastly, that in matters of religion they should prefer the King's commandments to those of the Church.

93. — Cranmer in his Reformation inverts all order.

But something still more surprising in the English Reformation, was a maxim of Cranmer's. Whereas, in reality, the worship depends on faith, and should by that be regulated, Cranmer confounded this order; and, before he had examined the doctrine, suppressed, in the worship, what most displeased him. According to Mr. Burnet, the belief of Christ's presence in every crumb of bread gave occasion to laying aside the cup||. And indeed, argues he, in this hypothesis, " communion in both kinds was not necessary^]"." So that the question about the necessity of both kinds depended on that of the Real Presence. Now, in 1548, England still believed the Real Presence, and the Parliament declared, that " the whole body of Christ was contained in every piece of consecrated bread, whether it were small or great⁵¹." The necessity, nevertheless, of communicating under both kinds had been already established ; that is, they had drawn the consequence before they were well assured of the principle.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 305

94:.— Sequel.

The year following, Christ's presence in the sacrament was greatly called in question, and the thing left undecided. Yet the adoration of Jesus Christ in the sacrament had already been suppressed provisionally ; as if one, seeing the people stand in great awe as in the King's presence, should say, — Good people, let us, in the first place, lay aside these exterior tokens of respect ; there will afterwards be time to examine whether the King be present or no, and whether this honour be agreeable to him. The oblation of the body and blood was in like manner taken away ; although this oblation, after all, be nothing else but the consecration made before God of this body and blood as really present before the manducation ; and without examining the principle, that which inevitably ensued from it, was already destroyed.

The cause of so irregular a proceeding was the leading the people by motives of hatred, and not of reason. It was an easy matter to excite hatred against certain practices, whereof they concealed from the people the beginning and right use, especially when some abuses were interwoven with them⁵² : thus it was easy to render priests odious who abused the Mass for sordid gain ; and hatred once inflamed against them, was by a thousand artifices insensibly turned against the mystery they celebrated, and even, as hath appeared, against the Real Presence, the foundation of it.

95. — How the public hatred was raised against the Catholic doctrine. — Example in the Instruction of young Edward, and concerning Images.

The same was done with respect to Images, and a French letter, which Mr. Burnet gives us of Edward YI. to his uncle, the protector, makes it palpable. To exercise this young prince's style, his master sent him about collecting all the passages wherein God speaks against idols. " In reading the Holy Scripture, I was desirous (said he) to note several places which forbid both to adore and to make any images, not only of strange Gods, but also to form any thing ; thinking to make it like to the Majesty of God the Creator.'" In this credulous age, he had simply believed what was told him, that Catholics made images, thinking they made them like to the Majesty of God. " I am quite astonished (proceeds he) God himself and his Holy Spirit having so often for-

• S. l.vi. 11.21. etseq. VOL. I. X

306 THE HISTORY OV [BOOK bidden it, that so many people have dared to commit idolatry by making and adoring images⁵³.'" He fixes the same hatred, as we see, on the making, as on the adoring them ; and, according to the notions that were given him, is in the right, since, undoubtedly, it is not lawful to make images with the thought of making something " like to the Majesty of the Creator P For, as this prince adds, God cannot be seen in things that are material, but will be seen in his own works. Thus was a young child deluded by them. His hatred was sth⁵⁴red up against Pagan images, in which man pretends to represent the Deity : it was shewn him that God forbids to make such images, but they not having as yet taken it into their heads to say that it is unlawful to make such as ours, or unlawful to represent Jesus Christ and his saints, they took care to conceal from him, that those of Catholics were not of this nature. A youth of ten or twelve years old could not discover it of himself ; to make images odious to him in general, and confusedly, was enough for their purpose. Those of the Church, though of a different order and design, passed in the same light as the others : dazzled with the plausible reasoning and authority of his masters, every thing was an idol to him ; and the hatred he had conceived against idolatry was easily turned against the Church.

96. — Whether any advantage can be drawn from the sudden progress of the pretended Reformation.

The people were not more cunning, and it was but too easy to animate them by the like artifices. After this, can the sudden progress of the Reformation be taken for a visible miracle, the work of God's own hand ? With what assurance could Mr. Burnet say it; — he! who has so thoroughly discovered to us the deep causes of this lamentable success ? A prince blinded with inordinate passion, and condemned by the pope, sets men at work to exaggerate particular facts, some odious proceedings and abuses which the Church herself condemned. All -pulpits ring with satires against ignorant and scandalous priests ; they are brought on the stage, and made the subject of farce and comedy, insomuch that Mr. Burnet himself expresses his indignation at itf. Under the authority of an infant King, and a protector violently addicted to Zuinglianism, invective and satire are still carried to a higher pitch. (i The laity, that had long

Vn.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 307 looked on their pastors with an evil eye⁵⁵," greedily swallowed down the poisonous novelty. The difficulties in the mystery of the Eucharist are removed, and the senses, instead of being kept under subjection, are flattered. Priests are set free from the obligation of continency ; monks from all their vows ; the whole world from the yoke of confession, wholesome, indeed, for the correction of vice, but burdensome to nature. A doctrine of great liberty was preached up, and which, as Mr. Burnet says, " shewed a plain and simple way to the kingdom of heavenf." Laws so convenient met with but too ready a pompliance. Of sixteen thousand Ecclesiastics, who made up the body of the English clergy, we are assured by Mr. Burnet, three parts renounced their celibacy in Edward's time]; ; that is, in the space of five or six years ; and good Protestants were made of these bad Ecclesiastics, who thus renounced their vows. Thus was the clergy gained. As for the Laity, the Church revenues, exposed to rapine, became their prey. The vestry plate enriched the prince's exchequer : the shrine alone of St. Thomas of Canterbury, with the inestimable presents that had been sent to it from all parts, produced a royal treasure of immense sums of money §. This was enough to degrade that holy martyr. He was attainted, that he might be pillaged ; nor were the riches of his tomb the least of his crimes. In short, it was judged more expedient to plunder the Churches, than, conformably to the intention of the founders, to apply their patrimony to its right use. Where is the wonder, if the nobility, the clergy, and the people were so easily gained upon ? is it not rather a visible miracle that there remained a spark in Israel, and that all other kingdoms did not follow the example of England, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany, which were reformed by the same means ?

97. — Whether the Duke of Somerset had the shew of a

Reformer.

Amidst all these Reformations, the only one that visiblymade no progress was that of manners. The success of Luther's Reformation in Germany, as to this point, I have already observed upon, and we need but read Mr. Burnet's history to be convinced that things went on no better in England. We have seen Henry VIII., her first Reformer ; the ambi- x 2

308 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK tious Duke of Somerset was the second. He equalled himself to crowned heads, though but a subject ; and assumed the title of " Duke of Somerset, by the grace of God⁵⁶." In the midst of the calamities which afflicted the whole nation, when London "was much disordered by the plague, his thoughts were only bent on designing such a palace as had not been seen in England ; and to aggravate his guilt by sacrilege, he built it upon the ruins, and with the materials, of three Episcopal palaces and a parish church ; and the revenues extorted from several Bishops and Chapters, who " had resigned many manors to him for obtaining his favour, none daring to oppose his willf." He did this, it is true, with leave obtained from the King ; but his abusing thus the authority of a minor, and the inuring his pupil to such sacrilegious donations, enflamed the guilt. I pass over the rest of his misdeeds, for which the Parliament condemned him, first to resign the authority he had usurped over the council, and afterwards to lose his head. But not to examine the reasons he had to condemn the Admiral, his brother, to the block ; how shameful a thing to have subjected a man of that dignity, and his own brother, to that iniquitous law, of " attainting a man" on the bare allegation of witnesses, "without bringing him to make his own defence !" By virtue of this law, the Admiral, besides many others, was judged without a hearing^. The Protector prevailed upon the King to order the Commons to proceed in it without hearing the party accused, and in this manner it was that he tutored up his pupil to do justice.

98. — Vain forwardness of Mr. Burnet to excuse Cranmer in little things, without speaking a word in great ones.

Mr. Burnet takes a great deal of pains to justify his Cranmer for signing, Bishop as he was, the death of this unhappy person, and meddling in a cause of blood, contrary to the canons. In order to this, he lays down, according to his custom, one of those specious plans, whereby he always strives, indirectly, to make odious the Church's faith, and elude the canons, but keeps at a distance from the main point⁵⁷. If Cranmer was to be excused, it ought not to have been merely for violating the canons, which, as an Archbishop he was obliged, above all others, to have a great regard for; but for breaking through the law of nature, sacred even

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 309 among heathens, of " not delivering any man to die, before that he which is accused, have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself*." Cranmer, notwithstanding this law, condemned the Admiral and signed the warrant for his execution. Should not so great a Reformer have stood up against so barbarous a procedure ? no truly : he deemed it a business of more importance to demolish altars, beat down images, not sparing even those of Jesus Christ, and abolish the Mass, which had been said and heard by so many Saints ever since the first establishment of Christianity among the English.

99. — Cranmer and the red of the Reformers spirit up rebellion against Queen Mary. — 1553.

To conclude the life of Cranmer : at the death of Edward VI. he set his hand to the entail of the Crown, in which this young Prince, out of hatred to the Princess his sister, who was a Catholic, changed the order of succession. Mr. Burnet would have us believe that the Archbishop signed it with great reluctance, and is satisfied if this great Reformer shews but some scruple in committing crimesf. Yet the Council, which Cranmer was at the head of, gave all necessary orders to arm the people against Queen Mary, and maintain the usurper Jane Grey ; preachers were set to work in the cause, and Ridley, Bishop of London, had orders to " set out Queen Jane's title in a sermon at Paul's J." When her affairs proved desperate, Cranmer, with the rest of them, owned his crime, and had recourse to the Queen's clemency. This Princess re-settled the Catholic religion, and England reunited herself to the Holy See. As Cranmer had always suited his religion to that of the King, it was easily believed he would also follow that of the Queen, and manifest no more difficulty with regard to saying Mass than he had done under Henry, thirteen years together, without believing in it. But his engagement was too strong, and had he thus turned with every wind, he had too openly declared himself void of all religions. He was sent to the Tower both for the crime of treason and that of heresy, and deposed by the Queen's authority ||. This authority was lawful with respect to him who had owned and even established it. It was by this authority he himself had deposed Bonner, Bishop of London, and was therefore punished by laws of his own making. For the like reason the Bishops, who, by patents, had received their Bishoprics for a certain time, were deprived ; and till the ecclesiastical order should be entirely re-established, the Protestants were proceeded against according to their own maxims.

100. — Cranmer declared heretic, and for what article. — 1555.

Cranmer, after his deposition, was left some time in prison. Afterwards, declared a heretic, he himself owned that it Ci was because he had denied the presence of Jesus Christ on the altar⁵⁸." By that is seen wherein the principal part of the Reformation under Edward VI. was made to consist, and I am willing to take notice of it here, because all that will take a new turn under Elizabeth.

101. — Cranmer 's false answer before his judges. — 1556.

When Cranmer's punishment was to be determined according to form, Commissioners from the Pope, and those of Philip and Mary (for the Queen had then married Philip II., King of Spain) sate in judgment against him. The accusation turned on his marriages and heresiesf. Mr. Burnet assures us that the Queen forgave him the treason for which he had been already condemned by Parliament. He confessed the facts which were imputed to him concerning his doctrine and marriages, " only said he had never forced any to subscribe^."

102. — Cranmer condemned by his own 'principles.

From these words, so full of meekness, one might be induced to think Cranmer had never condemned any person on account of doctrine. Not to mention here the imprisonment of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, that of Bonner, Bishop of London⁵⁹, and other things of the like nature, the Archbishop had signed and consented, in Henry's time, to Lambert's and Anne Askew's death, for denying the Real Presence || ; and under Edwai-d, to that of Joan of Kent and of George Van Pere, both burnt for heresy. What is still more, Edward, thinking it a piece of cruelty, refused to sign the warrant for burning her, and could not be persuaded to it but by Cranmer's authority^. If, then, he was condemned for heresy, he himself had often enough set the example.

H Ibid. p. 111.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 311

103. — Cranmer twice abjures the Reformation a little before his execution.

With the design of putting off the time of his execution, he declared "he was willing to go to Rome and defend his doctrine before the Pope, yet denied any authority the Pope had over him⁶⁰ :" from the Pope, in whose name he was condemned, he appealed to a General Council, but seeing nothing availed, he renounced all the errors of Luther and Zuinglius, and, together with the Real Presence, distinctly owned all the other points of the Catholic faith. The abjuration which he signed, was conceived in such terms as expressed the truest sorrow for his former errors. The • Protestants were extremely shocked at it. However, their Reformer made a second abjuration ; that is, when he saw, notwithstanding his preceding abjuration, the Queen was determined not to pardon him, he returned to his first errors; but he soon recanted them, "all this time (says Mr. Burnet) being under some small hopes of life." So that, continues this author, having been "dealt with to renew his subscription, and then to write the whole over again, he also did it." But here was the secret he found out to secure his conscience. Mr. Burnet goes on : " But conceiving likewise some jealousies that they might burn him, he wrote secretly a paper, containing a sincere confession of his faith ; and, being brought out, he carried that along with him." This confession, thus secretly written, shews us clearly enough that he was determined not to appear a Protestant as long as any hopes remained. At last, finding himself utterly disappointed, he resolved to declare what his heart had concealed, and so give himself the appearance of a martyr.

104. — Mr. Burnet compares Cranmer 's fault to that of St.

Peter.

Mr. Burnet uses all his address to hide the shame of so miserable a death ; and after alleging, in behalf of his hero, the faults of St. Athanasius and St. Cyril, which we find no mention of in ecclesiastical history, he now produces St. Peter's denial, so memorable in the Gospel. But what comparison is there betwixt a momentary weakness of this great Apostle, and the wretchedness of a man who betrayed his conscience during almost the whole course of his life, and for thirteen years together, to begin from the very time he was made a

Bishop r who never dared to avow his sentiments but when he had a King to back him ? And, lastly, on the very brink of death, confessed all that was required of him, as long as he had but a glimpse of hope ; so that his counterfeit abjuration was manifestly nothing else but a continuation of the base dissimulation of his whole life.

105. — Whether it be true, that Cranmer complied no more with Henry VIII. than his conscience 'permitted.

Nevertheless, our author will still boast to us the steady firmness (good God) of this perpetual flatterer of kings, who sacrificed every thing to the will of his masters, annulling as many marriages, setting his hand to as many condemnations, and consenting to as many laws as they pleased, even to those which were, either in fact or in his opinion, the most unjust; who, finally, was not ashamed to bring the heavenly authority of Bishops under subjection to that of the Kings of the earth, and enslave the Church, in discipline, in preaching the word, in the administration of Sacraments, and in Faith. Nevertheless, but one only blemish of his life does Mr. Burnet find, that of his abjuration⁶¹; and, as for the rest, allows only, that he was somewhat too much subjected to the will of Henry VIII. f, yet, to justify him completely in all his compliances, he affirms, " he thought none of them a sin J," consequently was no further obsequious to Henry than his conscience allowed him. His conscience then allowed him to annul two marriages on pretexts notoriously false, founded on no other principle than Henry's new amours. His conscience allowed him, though a Lutheran, to set his hand to articles of faith, wherein Lutheranism was condemned, and the Mass, the unjust object of the horror of the new Reformation, was established. His conscience allowed him to say Mass as long as Henry lived, without believing in it ; to offer to God, even for the dead, a sacrifice which he held for an abomination ; to ordain priests, giving them also the power of offering ; and according to the form of the Pontifical, which he durst not alter, to exact chastity of those whom he made sub-deacons, although lie did not think himself obliged to it, being a married man; to swear obedience to the Pope, whom he looked upon as anti-Christ; to accept his Bulls, and receive Archiepiscopal institution by his authority ; to pray to Saints, and incense their images, notwithstanding that, in the Lutheran principles, all this was nothing less than idolatry ; in a word, to profess and practise

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 313 all that he believed ought to be banished from the house of God, as an execration and a scandal.

106. — Mr. Burnet but ill excuses his Reformers.

But the thing was, " the Reformers (it is what Mr. Burnet tells us) did not know, as yet, that it was absolutely a sin to retain all these abuses till a proper occasion offered for abolishing them⁶²." Doubtless, they did not know it was a sin to change, according to their notion, the Lord's Supper into sacrilege, and to defile themselves with idolatry. To make them abstain from such things, God's commandment was not sufficient : they were to wait till the King and Parliament should think it fitting.

107. — Illusion in Mr. Burnet's examples. Naaman is brought forward as an instance, who obliged, by his office, to give the King his hand, would not remain standing whilst his master knelt down in the temple of Remmon ; and acts of religion are compared with the duty and decorum of a secular employmentf. The Apostles are brought forward to us, who, " After the law was dead, continued to worship at the temple, to circumcise, and to offer sacrifices^ ;" and the ceremonies, which God had instituted, and which all the Fathers allow ought to be buried honourably, are compared with actions believed to be manifestly impious^. The same Apostles are adduced to us, who made themselves all things to all men, and also the primitive Christians, who adopted some cex-emonies of paganism. But if the primitive Christians adopted ceremonies that were indifferent, does it follow from thence, that men ought to practise such as they believe are full of sacrilege? How blind, how contradictory to itself is the Reformation, which, in order to raise a horror of the Church's practices, must call them idolatrous ! Obliged to excuse the same things in her first authors, she holds them for indifferent, and makes it more conspicuous than the sun, that she banters the whole universe by calling that idolatry which is not so, or that those she admires for her heroes were, of all men, the most corrupt. But God hath revealed their hypocrisy by their own historian, and Mr. Burnet is the man that hath exposed their shame in full view.

108. — Mr. Burnet not alioays to be credited in his facts.

However, if to convict the pretended Reformation by their own witnesses, I have only, as it were, abridged Mr. Burnet's history, and received as true the facts I have related : I do not mean thereby to grant the rest, and allow all he relates as fact for the sake of those truths he was not able to deny, though prejudicial to his own religion. I shall not, for example, allow him, what he asserts without witnesses or proof, that there was a resolution taken between Francis I. and Henry VIII. to withdraw themselves by agreement from the Pope's obedience⁶³, and change the Mass into a bare Communionf ; that is, to suppress the Oblation and Sacrifice. This fact, averred by Mr. Burnet, was never even heard of in France. We are as much at a loss to know what this historian means by affirming, that the reason which made Francis I. alter his resolution of abolishing the Pope's power was, because Clement VII. " had granted him so great power over his own clergy, that he could scarce have expected more, if he had set up a patriarch in Francej ;" for here is nothing but mere empty words, a thing unknown to our historians. Mr. Burnet is no better versed in the histoiy of the Protestant religion, when he so boldly advances, as a thing avowed among the Reformers, that good works were indispensably and absolutely necessary to salvation^, for he hath seen, and will see this proposition, good works are necessary to salvation, expressly condemned by the Lutherans in their most solemn assemblies. It would be departing too much from my design, were I to descend to other facts of the like nature ; but I cannot but make it known to the world, how little credit this historian merits, with relation to the Council of Trent, which he ran over in so negligent a manner, that he did not so much as take notice of the very title, which this council placed at the beginning of all its decisions. For he upbraids it with " having usurped the most glorious title of the most holy Oecumenical Council, representing the Catholic Church ||," although this quality be not found in any one of its decrees: a thing of little importance in itself, since it is not this expression that makes a council ; yet it never could have escaped a man that had but just opened the book with the least attention.

109. — Mr. Burnet' s fallacy with regard to Fra-Paolo.

It behoves one, therefore, to be very cautious how he credits

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 315 our historian in what he pronounces touching this council on the testimony of Fra-Paolo, its declared enemy rather than historian. Mr. Burnet pretends that this author ought, with respect to Catholics, to be above all exception, because he is one of their own party⁶⁴ ; and this is the common artifice of all Protestants. But they are very well convinced in their consciences, that this Fra-Paolo, who counterfeited our religion, was in reality nothing but a Protestant in a monk's disguise. None knows him better than Mr. Burnet, who boasts him to us. He who, in his history of the Reformation, sets him forth for an author of our party, in another book, lately translated into our language, takes off the mask and shews him a Protestant, that had concealed himselff; that looked upon the English common-prayer book as his pattern ; that occasionally, from the falling out between Paul V. and the republic of Venice, laboured for nothing more than to bring this republic^ " to an entire separation, not only from the Court, but also from the Church of Rome; who believed himself to be in a defiled and idolatrous Church, wherein he continued nevertheless; heard Confessions, said Mass, and quieted the remorse of his conscience by passing over many parts of the canon, and not joining in those parts of the offices that went against his conscience⁶⁵." This is what Mr. Burnet writes in the Life of William Bedell, the Protestant Bishop of Kilmore, in Ireland, who was present at Veiiice at the time of the difference, and to whom Fra-Paolo had disclosed his sentiments. There is no need of mentioning this author's letters, which are all Protestant, and were in every library, and which Geneva at length hath made public. I speak to Mr. Burnet only of what he wrote himself, at the time he counted amongst our authors Fra-Paolo, a Protestant under a monk's disguise, who said Mass not believing in it, and who remained in a Church whose worship appeared to him idolatry.

110. — The plans of Religion which Mr. Burnet makes after Fra-Paolo's example.

But what he deserves the least to be pardoned in is, when, in imitation of Fra-Paolo, and with as little truth, he lays before us those ingenious plans of Primitive-Church-doctrine. This invention, 1 must own, is equally commodious and agreeable. An artful historian, in the midst of his narration, slily

% Ibid. p. 23. § Ibid. p. 16.

316 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK introduces all he pleases of antiquity, and erects for us a scheme of his own contrivance. Under pretext, that an historian ought not to enter into proofs, or play the Doctor, he is content with alleging such facts as are favourable to his own religion. Is he inclined to ridicule the veneration of images or relics, or the Pope's authority, or prayer for the dead, or even, to omit nothing, the pallium? he gives to these practices such a form and such a date as he thinks fit. He says, for example *, of the pallium, " that this was a device set up by Pope Paschal II. ;"" although it be found five hundred years before, in the letters of Pope Vigilius and St. Gregory. The credulous reader, finding a history all over interspersed with these reflexions, and seeing everywhere, in a work whose character ought to be sincerity, an abridgment of the antiquities of several ages, without once dreaming that the author gives him, either his prejudices or conjectures for certain truths, admires the erudition and agreeable turns of the work, believes he has reached to the very original of things, and drinks at the fountain-head. But it is not just that Mr. Burnet, under the insinuating title of an historian, should thus peremptorily decide on Church-antiquity, nor that Fra- Paolo, whom he copies after, should acquire a right to make what he pleases pass for truth concerning our religion, because that, under a Monk's habit, he hid a Calvinistic heart, and laboured under-hand to discredit the Mass he said daily.

111. — Gerson cited strangely from the purpose.

Let not Mr. Burnet, therefore, be any longer credited as to what he relates of the Church's dogmata f, since he turns all of them to a wrong sense. Whether he speaks of himself, or introduces in his history a third person that speaks of our doctrine, his inward design is ever to decry it. Can his Cranmer be borne with, when, abusing a treatise which Gerson had made De auferibilitate papce, he concludes, as from this Doctor, " That the papal power is a quite needless thing" 1 whereas, he means only, as the sequel of this work demonstrates, so as to leave no room for doubt, that the Pope may be deposed in certain cases. When an author relates such things seriously, his design is to trifle with mankind, and he destroys his own credit with all thinking persons.

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 317

112. — A gross Error relating to Celibacy and the Roman Pontifical.

But the subject on which our historian has exhausted all his ingenuity, and has employed, as I may say, all his finest colouring, is that, regarding the Celibacy of Ecclesiastics. I shall not discuss what he says, either in his own, or Cranmer's name. One may judge of his remarks on antiquity⁶⁶, by those he makes on the Roman Pontifical, which will easily be granted me has nothing in it obscure with respect to celibacy : " It was considered (says he) that the promise made by clergymen, according to the rites of the Roman Pontifical, did not necessarily oblige them to celibate. He that confers the orders asks of him that receives them, Wilt thou promise to live in chastity and sobriety ? To which the subdeacon answers, I will." Mr. Burnet concludes from these words, that no other chastity was here understood, but that which one is obliged to "in a state of marriage, as well as out of it." But the imposition is too gross to be borne with. The words he relates are not said in the ordination of a sub-deacon, but in that of a bishop f- And in that of a sub-deacon, he that presents himself to this order is stopped to hear declared to him that, till then, he was free ; but if he proceeds further, he must keep chastity. Will Mr. Burnet now say again, that the chastity here in question is that which is kept in a state of marriage, and which teaches us " to abstain from all unlawful embraces?" — Must we then wait for the sub-deaconship to enter into this obligation ? And who is it that does not acknowledge here that profession of continency, which is imposed, according to the ancient canons, on the principal clerks from the very time they are raised to the sub-deaconship ?

113. — A vain shift. Mr. Burnet still replies J, that, -whatever might be required by the Roman Pontifical, the English priests, who were married in the time of Edward, had been ordained without any such " question or answer made, and so were not precluded from marriage by any vow." But the contrary appears from himself, he having owned that in the time of Henrv VIII. nothing was altered in the rituals, nor in the other books of offices, except some extravagant prayers addressed to saints, or some other matter of light importance ; and it is easy to be seen, that this Prince was far enough from taking from⁶⁷⁶⁸ ordination the profession of continency, as he had even prohibited the violation of it; first, under pain of death, and, when he was most mitigated, '{ under the forfeiture of goods and chattels *." And this, indeed, was the reason why Cranmer never durst declare his marriage during the life of Henry VIII. ; but, to save himself, was forced to add to a forbidden marriage the reproach of clandestinity.

1 14. — Conclusion of this Book.

No wonder then, that under such an Archbishop, no regard was had to the doctrine of his holy predecessors, St. Dunstan, St. Lanfranc, St. Anselm, and such others, whose admirable virtues, and particularly that of continency, were an honour to the Church. Nor do I wonder, that in his time, St. Thomas of Canterbury's name, whose life was the condemnation of Thomas Cranmer, was effaced from their Calendar of

Saints St. Thomas of Canterbury resisted the attempts of unjust Kings ; Thomas Cranmer prostituted his conscience to them, and indulged their passions. The one, banished, his goods confiscated, persecuted in his own and the persons of his dearest friends, every way afflicted, purchased the glorious liberty of speaking what his conscience dictated for truth, with a generous contempt of all the conveniences of life, and life itself: the other, to please his Prince, spent his life under a shameful dissimulation, and an outward conformity in every thing to a religion, which he inwardly condemned. The one combated even to blood for the Church's minutest rights; and by maintaining her prerogatives, as well those which Jesus Christ had acquired by his death, as those which pious Princes had endowed her with, defended the very outworks of the holy city : the other surrendered to the Kings of the earth her most sacred trust ; the word, worship, sacraments, keys, censures, authority, even faith itself. In a word, every tiling was inthralled, and the whole ecclesiastical authority being united to the royal throne, the Church had no more power than the State pleased to allow. Lastly, the one, intrepid and exemplarily pious through the whole course of his life, was yet more so in the last period of it: the other, always dastardly and trembling at death's approach, shrunk even below himself, and at the age of threescore and two, sacrificed even, to the dregs of despicable life, his faith and conscience. Accordingly, he has left but an odious name amongst men; nor can anything but stress of

VII.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 319 wit and quirk, which plain facts belie, excuse him even to his own party : but the glory of St. Thomas of Canterbury will live as long as the church ; and his virtues, which France and England have venerated with a kind of emulation, will never be forgotten. Nay, the more doubtful the cause of this holy martyr appeared to the politic world, the more did the divine power declare itself in his behalf, by the signal chastisements of Henry II., this holy Prelate's persecutor, by the exemplary penance of this Prince, which alone could appease the wrath of heaven, and by miracles of so great a lustre, wrought at his tomb, that they drew to it the Kings of France as well as England. Miracles, I say, so continual, and so well attested by the unanimous consent of all the historians of those times, that to deny them is to reject at once the truth of all history whatsoever. The English Reformation, nevertheless, hath struck the name of so great a man out of the Calendar of Saints. More flagrant still have been their attempts : nothing but the degradation of all that nation's saints, since it first became Christian, can satisfy them. Bede, their venerable historian, tells them nothing but fables ; at most, but legendary stories, when he relates the miracles of their conversion, the holiness of their pastors, of their Kings, and their religious. St. Augustin the Monk, who brought them to the Gospel, and St. Gregory, Pope, who sent him, escape not the hands of the Reformation : they are attacked and defamed by her chief writers. To believe them *, the mission of those saints, who laid the foundation of the English church, was the work of the ambition and policy of Popes ; and St. Gregory, so humble, so holy a Pope, by converting the English, aimed rather at subjecting them to the Holy See, than to Jesus Christ. It is what is published in England, and her Reformation establishes itself by trampling under foot and polluting the whole Christianity of the nation in its very source. But so learned a nation, it is to be hoped, will not always remain under this seduction : the respect they retain for the Fathers, and their curious and continual researches into antiquity, will bring them back to the doctrine of the first ages. I cannot believe the Chair of St. Peter, whence they received Christianity, will always be the object of their hatred The time of vengeance and illusion shall pass away, and God will give ear to the prayers of his Saints.

320 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK⁶⁹⁷⁰

Footnotes

1. Appen. t. iii. p. 303. ↩

2. Ext. from the Joum. of the House of Lords and Com. 3 Jan. 1681, 23 Dec. 1680, and 5 Jan. 1681, in the beginning of the 2d vol. of Bur. Hist. ↩

3. Burn, l.jiii. p. 181. f Notitia Imperii. ↩

4. Preface, towards the end. f 2d Part. 1. i. p. 85. ↩

5. Bam. lib. ii. p. 87. f Ibid. + Ibid. ↩

6. Pontif, Rom. in Conscr. Ep. f Burn, lib. ii. p. 129. ↩

7. Pont. Rom. in Ord. Presbyt. ↩

8. Burn. lib. ii. p. 131. f Ibid. J, Ibid. ↩

9. Burn. lib. ii. p. 134. f P. 156. J P. 155, 156. § Lib. iii. p. 180. ↩

10. Burn. lib. iii. p. 181. t Lib. ii. p. 171. ↩

11. Burn. lib. iii. p. 196. f Ibid. p. 192. $ Ibid. p. 199. ↩

12. Cranmer's letter, Burn. lib. iii. p. 200. t Ibid. 1. iii. p. 203. ↩

13. Burn. lib. iii. p. 203. f Ibid. X Ibid. ↩

14. Ibid. p. 200. || Ibid. p. 201. f Ibid. p. 203. ↩

15. Burn. lib. iii. p. 216. f Ibid. ↩

16. Burn. lib. iii. p. 217. f Ibid. p. 218. } Ibid. p. 217. ↩

17. Collec. of Records, t. i. add. p. 306. ↩

18. Bum. lib. iii. p. 223. t Ibid. p. 225. + Ibid. p. 256. ↩

19. Burnet, p. 271. f Ibid. p. 276. J Ibid. p. 277. ↩

20. Ibid. p. 278. || lbid.p.277. «I Ibid. 279. VOL. I. T ↩

21. Burnet, p. 281. Coll. n. 19. f Ibid. ↩

22. Burnet, p. 281. f fait i. Lib. iii. p, 290, et seq. ↩

23. Burnet, Lib. iii. p. 294. f Ibid. p. 254. % Ibid. p. 255. § Ibid. p. 257. ↩

24. Burnet, p. 265. t Ibid. p. 2G6. J Rec. p. i. Lib.iii. n. 21. p. 220. ↩

25. Omnes conveniuut. Rec. part 1. lib. iii. n. xxi. p. "223. ↩

26. Burnet, part ii, lib. ii. p. 176, f Pref. ↩

27. Deut. xxv. 5. t Melanc. lib.iv. ep.185. $ Ibid. ep. 183. ↩

28. Burn. lib. ii, p. 92. ↩

29. Burn. lib. ii. p. 94. f Collec.ofRec.partv.lib.ii.il. ↩

30. Burnet, t. i. Pref. t Hist. del. Cone. Trid. lib. i. An. 1534. ↩

31. Burnet, lib. ii. p. 90, f Ibid. ↩

32. Burnet, lib. iii. p. 293. f Ibid. p. 303. ↩

33. Exod. xii. 11. t Part 2. 1. i, p. 1 7 1 . ↩

34. Part 2.1. i.p. 171. f Ibid- ↩

35. Pref. and part. 1. 1, iii. p. 294. \ Ibid. J Cone. Milev. cap, 2. Epis. Alex. Episc. Alexandrite ad Alex. Constantinop. ↩

36. Ep. Alex. Episc. Alex, ad Alex, Constanti. ↩

37. Burn, part 1. 1. ii. p. 139. f Lib. vii. Ind. 2.Ep. 64. ↩

38. Lib. vii. Ind. 2, Ep. 65. ↩

39. Burn, part 1. 1. iii. p. 267. part 2. 1. i. p. 6. Col. of Rec. part 2, 1. i. p. !J0. f Ibid. X Ibid. § Ibid, and part 1. p. 276. || Part 2. I. f.p. 218. ↩

40. Burn, part 1. 1. i. pp. 141, 142,143. f Ibid. p. 43. ↩

41. S. ii. 2. Burn, part 2. 1. i. p. 49. f Ibid. + Eec. n. pp. 16, 17. ↩

42. Rec. n. p. 61 . t Ibid. p. 80. % Ibid. p. 81. ↩

43. Rec. n. part 2. 1. i. p, 40. t Hosp. part 2. An. 1547. pp. 207, 208, et seq. Burn, part 2. 1. i. p. 106. ↩

44. Bum. p. 170. Col. n. 55. f Ibid. p. 104. ↩

45. Lib. i. p. 76. f Ibid. p. 170. ↩

46. Lit. of S. Basil, &c. $ Is. ix. 6. ↩

47. Bum. part 2. 1. i. p. 72. f Greg. lib. vii. ind. ii. ep. 64. ↩

48. Ibid. p. 191. \ Ibid. ** Ibid. ↩

49. Matth. xv. 9. t Burn. p. 96. J Ibid. p. 95, § Ibid. p. 191. ↩

50. Ibid, part 2. p. 42. H Ibid, part 1. p. 290. ** Ibid. p. 651. ↩

51. Rem. part ii. I. ii. p. 68. f Lib. iii. p. 318. ↩

52. Lib. iii. p. 31. f Ibid. ♦ Ibid, part ii. 1. ii. p. 276. ↩

53. Ibid, part i. 1. ii. p. 244. ↩

54. Burnet, part ii. lib. i. p. 134. -(• Ibid. % Ibid. p. 100. ↩

55. Ibid. ↩

56. Acts xxv. 16. | Burnet, part ii. p. 223. J Ibid. lib. ii. p. 238. ↩

57. Ibid. p. 250. || Ibid. p. 274. ↩

58. Burnet, lib. ii. p. 283. f Ibid, part ii. p^257. J Ibid. p. 332. ↩

59. Ibid, part ii. lib. i. p. 37. || Ibid, part ii. lib. i. p. 112. ↩

60. Burnet, part ii. lib. i. p. 332, 333. ↩

61. Burnet, p. 336. f Ibid, % Pref. torn. i. ↩

62. Burn. t. u Pref. j Ibid, 4 Reg. v. 18, 19. J Ibid. $ Ibid. ↩

63. Burn. parti. 1. ii. p. 133. f Ibid. 1. iii. p. 140. + Ibid. p. 133. ↩

64. Part i. I, iii. p. 286, 237. Sup. 1. v. n. 12. Inf. 1. viii. n.30,et seq. ↩

65. Part ii. 1. i. p. 20. ↩

66. Part 1. Pref. t The Life of Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, p. 8. ↩

67. Life of Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, p. 340. f Burn, part ii. 1. ii. p. 175. ↩

68. Burn, partii. 1. i. pp.91, 92. t Pont. Rom. in Consec. Ep. J Ibid. ↩

69. Part i. I.iii. p. 282. ↩

70. Whitak. cont. Durae, Fulk, cont, Stapl, Jewel, Apol. Ecc, Angl. ↩