from their Paul III. mittee of cardinals and other prelates' was appointed in 1538, by pope Paul III. to consider what could possibly be done'de emendanda Ecclesia'. Among the signatures appended to the report are the names of Gaspar Contarini, and our own Reginald Pole. It is Specimen the will of God,' was their unhesitating language, 'to report to rescue the tottering and all but subverted Church by your instrumentality, to lend a succouring hand to her ruin, to raise her to the eminence of old, and to retrieve her ancient honour. We have the best reason for this inference respecting the Divine will, since your holiness has instructed us, that, without reference to your own advantage or the advantage of any other, we should point out to you the abuses, yea, rather diseases, by which for a long time the Church of God, and especially this Roman court, have been most grievously afflicted: from which also it has resulted, that as the pestiferous disease became gradually inveterate they have been almost involved in a general ruin.' The evidence supplied by the above extracts might seem enough to demonstrate the prevalence of corruption in the times preceding the Reformation: but since it is not unusual in our day to extol the perfections of the medieval system, and to decry the movement of the sixteenth century as an outbreak of individual fanaticism, a few passages may be profitably subjoined from distinguished historians and polemics of the later Roman communion. Let us hear the avowal of the learned cardinal de leur doctrine.' Sarpi, Hist. du Concile de Trente, I. 151; ed. Courayer. 1 Consilium Delectorum Cardinalium et aliorum Prælatorum de emendanda Ecclesia, in Le Plat, Monumenta Concil. Trident. II. 598, Lovan. 1782. One of the first abuses animadverted upon is the unfitness of the Testimony the Church. clergy, particularly the priests: corruption of Testimony of of Bossuet, Schlegel, and Möhler. Bellarmine': 'Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in the ecclesiastical judgments; in morals no discipline, in sacred literature no erudition, in divine things no reverence; religion was almost extinct.' In the same candid spirit is the following statement of de Mézeray, the historiographer of France2: 'As the heads of the Church paid no regard to the maintenance of discipline, the vices and excesses of the ecclesiastics grew up to the highest pitch, and were so public and universally exposed as to excite against them the hatred and contempt of the people. We cannot repeat without a blush the usury, the avarice, the gluttony, the universal dissoluteness of the priests of this period, the licence and debauchery of the monks, the pride and extravagance of the prelates, and the shameful indolence, ignorance and superstition pervading the whole body....These were not, I confess, new scandals: I should rather say that the barbarism and ignorance of preceding centuries, in some sort, concealed such vices; but, on the subsequent revival of the light of learning, the spots which I have pointed out became more manifest, and as the unlearned who were corrupt could not endure the light through the pain which it caused to their eyes, so neither did the learned spare them, turning them to ridicule and delighting to expose their turpitude and to decry their superstitions.' Bossuet3 in the opening statements of his 'Histoire 1 Concio XXVIII. Opp. vi. 296; Colon. 1617. 2 Abrege' Chronol. vII. 691, seqq. à Paris, 1681. 3 666 Qui me donnera," disoit saint Bernard," que je voie, avant que de mourir, l'Eglise de Dieu, comme elle étoit dans les premiers jours?" Si ce saint hom me a eu quelque chose à regretter en mourant, ç'a été de n'avoir pas vu un changement si heureux. Il a gémi toute sa vie des maux de l'Eglise. . . . . Les désordres s'étoient encore augmenté depuis. L'Eglise Romaine, la mère des Eglises, qui durant neuf siècles entiers, en observant des Variations,' admits the frightful corruptions of the Church for centuries before the Reformation; and he has been followed in our own times by Frederic von Schlegel' and Möhler2. While all of them are most anxious to prove that the Lutheran movement was revolutionary and subversive of the ancient faith, they are constrained to admit the universality of the abuses, which, in the language of Schlegel, 'lay deep, and were ulcerated in their very roots.' SECT. 2. The regularity of the English Reformation. We may now, therefore, pass to the question more immediately bearing upon our own country: How did the Church of England reply to the general clamour of the age for the correction of the prevalent evils ? ple of the English Re formation. The principle upon which she proceeded may be The princi briefly stated thus:-A national Church3, through the medium of its representative synod, duly convened with the royal sanction, has inherent authority from its Divine Founder to remove every species of abuse, whether of doctrine or discipline, existing within its own jurisdiction; nay, is absolutely bound by its allegiance to Christ and its regard for the people committed to its charge, to vindicate and extend the truths of the Gospel, as once for all delivered to the saints and taught in the Early Church. and catholi Nor in asserting and acting out this principle did Antiquity the Church of England exceed the power which had la première avec une exactitude exemplaire la discipline ecclésiastique, la maintenoit de toute sa force par tout l'univers, n'étoit pas exempte de mal; et dès le temps du concile de Vienne [1311], un grand évêque chargé par le pape de préparer les matières qui devoient y être traitées, mit pour fondement de l'ouvrage de cette sainte assemblée, qu'il falloit réformer l'Eglise dans 1 Philosophy of History, 400, 2 Symbolik, II. 31, 32, Engl. Transl. 3 The phrase, 'Ecclesia Anglicana,' is at least as old as Magna Charta. city of this principle, proved by examples. 6 been claimed by domestic synods in the purest ages and due, and that without any leave asked of the see of Rome; for in this fourth council of Toledo they decree, "That if there happen a cause of faith to be settled, a general, that is, a national synod of all Spain and Galicia shall be held thereon;" and this in the year 643: where you see it was then catholic doctrine in all Spain that a national synod might be a competent judge in a cause of faith. And I would fain know what article of faith doth more concern all Christians in general, than that of Filioque? and yet the Church of Rome herself made that addition to the Creed without a general council....And if this were practised so often and in so many places, why may not a national council of the Church of England do the like1?' supremacy. encroach The first act, which the recovery of these princi- The papal ples accomplished, was the rejection of the papal supremacy. Originally independent of the Latin Church, this country had been gradually drawn into a comparative subjugation. The Roman element in our Anglo-Saxon Christianity had overpowered the influence exerted by the surviving British communion and the missionaries from Ireland; till at length a consi- Its gradual derable degree of deference, and even of servility, was ments. manifested by the king, the clergy, and the people, towards the dominant court of Rome. Anterior to the Conquest the feeling was that of gratitude and affection, such as we may now trace in the language of the American Church with regard to the Church of England but when the papal pretensions had grown into the form which they assumed under Gregory VII. and his successors,-being developed from a primacy of order into a supremacy of power,-the tone of the English was frequently altered, and symptoms appear in their intercourse with the popes, of the warm and unflinching nationality which effected the Reformation. From the time of the dispute on the subject of investitures,-when the king and his nobles, the 1 Archbp. Laud, against Fisher, Sect. 24, 126, 127, Oxf. 1839. |