CROMWELL.--GARDINER.--BONNER.--THE ACT OF THE SIX
ARTICLES.--SERMONS OF THOSE DAYS.--PROPOSED DISPOSAL OF
ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY.--ARTICLES OF 1536.--THE BIBLE IN
CHURCHES.--BISHOPS’ BOOK.--KING’S BOOK.
The two great measures of the supremacy, and the suppression of the
abbeys had been carried, but with haste and no small violence; and now
came the recoil. It pertained to the king’s prerogative that the pope
should be deposed, and to his exchequer that the monasteries should be
despoiled; so far, therefore, Henry was a cordial reformer. Churchwork
is said in general to go up on crutches, and to come down post; and
the present case furnishes no exception to the proverb: for now the
king well nigh deserted the cause in which he had been so actively
engaged; and having undone so much of the old religion, was disposed
to do nothing for the new; but, betaking himself to catholic advisers,
surrendered himself for the most part into their hands during the
remainder of his reign. For though we shall have occasion to notice
some acts of grace towards the reformed faith, they are few and feeble,
suggested by a passing wish to preserve something of consistency, by
momentary caprice, or by the force of conflicting parties, which,
causing him to fall into a place where two seas met, constrained him at
least to be still.
The abbeys had scarcely been disposed of, when Cromwell, the political
agent of the reformation, and the individual who had succeeded to
the greatest share of Wolsey’s influence over the king, fell into
disgrace. After the untimely death of Jane Seymour, he had ventured
(a measure requiring as much personal courage as the suppression of
the monasteries) to negotiate a match for his capricious master; a
match which, it was thought, would bind Henry still more closely with
the Protestant cause, by connecting him with the Lutheran princes of
Germany. But Cromwell’s good genius had here forsaken him; Anne of
Cleves was not found to answer to the agreeable portrait which Holbein
had painted of her; on the contrary, she was illfavoured; moreover
she spoke Dutch, a language of which the king was ignorant; and had
never learned music, of which he was passionately fond. Henry became
disgusted, and Cromwell’s position became precarious. Other ostensible
causes were of course put forward to justify the ruin of this minister;
treason and heresy were the stalking-horses, but the marriage was the
snare--“The weight that pulled him down was there.” That Henry gave him
an earldom after this period, is true enough; it might be to throw dust
in the eyes of the suspicious; it certainly proved but a garland to
deck the victim for the altar. And now Gardiner, bishop of Winchester,
“that fox” who had been long upon the watch to supplant him, saw that
his opportunity was come, and profited by it. Gardiner and Cromwell had
known each other from early years, having been brought up together,
and of nearly the same standing in the household of cardinal Wolsey;
but there was not room upon the stage for both of them at a time; and
Cromwell having soon on his part declared for the Reformation, had the
king with him; and whilst this was the case, the churchman lay by.
Cromwell seems to have owed him no good-will, and to have taken no
pains to disguise his sentiments. Having the king’s ear, he sent Bonner
to supersede him as ambassador in France; and from the letters of that
monster (as time-serving then as he was afterwards bloody-minded),
and which are all meant to play up to the known tastes or prejudices
of his patron, it is plain enough that Gardiner was disliked and
distrusted by Cromwell, whom he in his turn was as studious to affront
by the insults which he heaped upon this his mean-spirited vassal,
and the savage ill-humour with which he resigned to him his office.
He returned, however, to England; and as a man changes his latitude,
but not his temper, who crosses the seas, Gardiner still continued
to be a thorn in Cromwell’s side; and on a comparison of dates, it
will be seen that he had scarcely set foot in England before a change
began to manifest itself in the counsels of the king, and Cromwell’s
influence, even long before he was attainted, to decline. What, indeed,
could induce the latter to be instrumental to his recall from France
(as Fox implies he was), and thereby to put his enemy in a situation
where he could do him more mischief, it is vain at this time of day to
inquire; but it seems probable that Gardiner was thought to be playing
a game of his own in his master’s service; and to be accommodating the
foreign relations of his country to a policy that suited himself, or
at least the cause which he had at heart.[303] But in truth it must
have been a very difficult matter for a minister of those times to have
found the right place for the bishop of Winchester, whose talents were
such, that it was alike unsafe to use or to refuse them. The character
of this double-edged tool the king had learned to appreciate when it
was too late; and on making a fresh will shortly before his death,
showed no disposition to meddle with it more, by excluding Gardiner
from the number of his executors (for in a former will, which was now
cancelled, his name was found amongst them), and on being reminded
of the omission by Sir Anthony Browne, he replied, that he had acted
advisedly, seeing that “if he were in his testament he would cumber
them all.”[304]
Gardiner, however, once dominant, maintained the ascendency of the
Romish party and principles to the last of Henry’s reign. He had,
indeed, powerful coadjutors. The Howards were devoted to the same
cause; and the natural influence of that distinguished house was then
accidentally increased by the alliance which the king was about to form
with one of its members. Then, again, he strengthened himself by the
king’s fears. If he found him making any demonstrations of a nearer
approach to the Reformers, he could threaten him with the displeasure
of the emperor, and picture to him the jealousy with which he was
already regarded by the European powers, as the royal ringleader of
heresy. The expectation too of a general council shortly to be held
for the settlement of religious differences, and which finally fixed
itself at Trent, threw its weight into the same scale. Henry might
think it his policy not to commit himself farther with the faithful
sons of the church till the storm was overpast. Not was it a slight
matter in favour of Gardiner, that the king, in a rash hour, had
become an author; that his sentiments on the leading doctrines of the
Reformers were put upon irrevocable record; and that now to flinch
from his positions would be to resign the laurels which his reputed
scholarship had won for him; and, what was still less to his taste,
would be to pronounce that in matters of opinion even he himself was
not infallible. No man was better qualified to take advantage of these
or any other incidents which might make for his object than Gardiner,
the most astute politician of his time; while Cranmer, on the other
hand, had nothing to oppose to him but the spirit of an Israelite
indeed, alike unfit for contriving plots himself, or for discovering
them in another; for of him it might have been said; as it was said of
one of his most conspicuous successors in the see of Canterbury (though
a character upon the whole very different from his), that “too secure
in a good conscience, and most sincere worthy intention, with which no
man was ever more plentifully replenished, he thought he could manage
and discharge the place and office of the greatest minister in the
court without any other friendship or support than what the splendour
of a pious life and his accomplished integrity would reconcile to
him; which was an unskilful measure,” adds the great historian, whose
experience it is presumptuous to question, yet whose conclusion it
is painful to admit, “in a licentious age, and may deceive a good
man in the best of times that shall succeed; which exposed him to
such a torrent of adversity and misery, as we shall have too natural
an occasion to lament in the following discourse, in which it will
be more reasonable to enlarge of his singular abilities and immense
virtue.”[305] Soon had Cranmer reason to exclaim of those now admitted
into the king’s counsels, “Ye are too hard for me!” for now is past the
act of the Six Articles (the whip with six strings as it was called),
the death-warrant of so many innocent men, whereby, 1. the doctrine
of transubstantiation was established by law; 2. the communion in
both kinds excluded; 3. the marriage of priests forbidden; 4. vows of
celibacy declared obligatory; 5. private masses for souls in purgatory
upheld; and 6. auricular confession pronounced expedient, and necessary
to be retained. The penalties annexed to the breach of these decrees
being for the first, to be burnt as a heretic, for the others to be
hanged as a felon, and in all cases to forfeit lands and goods to the
king as a traitor. Against these sanguinary articles Cranmer lifted up
his voice in parliament for three days together in vain. He, on that
occasion, was acknowledged by his opponents to have played a noble
part; and the king, whose redeeming virtue it was to deal kindly with
this single-hearted man, expressed his sense of the zeal, the honesty,
and the learning with which he had withstood court and parliament to
the face; by commanding the chief lords to dine with the archbishop
at Lambeth after the bill was passed, and to “signify unto him that
it was the king’s pleasure that all should in his Highness’ behalf
cherish, comfort, and animate him.”[306] The king, who understood
the beauty of his character, was faithful to his pledge, however
faithless were some of his messengers; and within two years after,
when two several attempts were made--the one by the clergy, the other
by the council, and both probably by Gardiner--to bring the archbishop
under the operation of this cruel act, and so to run him down, Henry
generously interposed, and casting his sceptre before the pack that
was open-mouthed to tear this noble quarry in pieces, called them off,
and rescued the victim.[307] It is singular, and characteristic of the
man, and of his unsuspicious temperament, that in both instances his
sovereign was the first person to apprise him of his danger; in the
one case calling him into his barge, as he passed by Lambeth Bridge,
and addressing him--“O my chaplain, now I know who is the greatest
heretic in Kent,” and thereupon putting him in possession of the
charges of his accusers, and giving him directions for vindicating his
own innocence, and bringing his enemies to shame; in the other case
sending for him out of bed at midnight, and acquainting him that the
council had demanded his commitment to the Tower, as being one who
sowed heresy and sedition throughout the realm, and that the next
day the deed was to be done. What follows is a scene of very touching
beauty, whether as given by Fox or Strype; and as the incident is
full of dramatic effect, it is happy that Shakspeare has set upon it
his own mark, and thereby rescued it from the clownish hand of any
ordinary playwright. At the same time it may be remarked, that his
characters have their parts allotted to them without any very strict
attention to historical fidelity, and sometimes in violation of it.
Whether our poet like those of Italy, both ancient and modern, had his
own favourites amongst the great of the country, and so doled out his
measures of immortality or infamy accordingly--whether the popularity
of the reigning queen did not influence the estimation in which the
memory of her father’s courtiers was held; or whether, which is the
most probable, Shakspeare, with his usual indifference to the minuter
matters of his drama, did not put words into the mouths of his speakers
somewhat at random, and without much concern as to their being strictly
the property of the individual bishop, earl, or duke, who was made to
utter them--suffice it to say, in the language of our martyrologists,
that when the king had spoke his mind, the archbishop kneeled down and
said, “I am content, if it please your Grace, with all my heart to go
thither at your Highness’s commandment; and I most humbly thank your
Majesty that I may come to my trial; for there be that have in many
ways slandered me, and now this way I hope to try myself not worthy of
such report.” The king, perceiving the man’s uprightness, joined with
such simplicity, said, “Oh Lord! what a man be you! what simplicity is
in you! I had thought that you would rather have sued to us to have
taken the pains to have heard you and your accusers together for your
trial, without any such endurance. Do you know what state you be in
with the whole world and how many great enemies you have? Do you not
consider what an easy thing it is to procure three or four false knaves
to witness against you? Think you to have better luck that way than
your master Christ had!”[308]
With these and other words to the same effect, the king gave him his
ring, which in case of extremity he might produce at the council, and
by virtue of it appeal to Cæsar. He did so, and thus Cranmer escaped
out of their hands. But all had not the same friend, nor therefore
the same fortune; for it is to be observed, that the commissioners
appointed to carry the Six Articles into execution did not confine
their investigations to offences coming directly under the act, but,
erecting themselves into a kind of inquisition-general, they took
cognisance of all that was done after a manner which they called
heresy, whatever it might be; and neglect of confession in Lent,
absence from church, forbearing to creep to the cross on Good Friday,
neglecting the use of the rosary, eating meat at interdicted seasons,
and the like, were all misdemeanors fetched within the compass of this
cruel dragnet of the Six Articles. Accordingly, the prisons of London
were gorged with culprits;[309] for now an opportunity was afforded of
raking up old suspicions, and putting all upon their purgation. Many
are the affecting stories of those days which have come down to us;
glimpses of the domestic troubles of an age called so loudly to bear
the cross. The meetings by stealth amongst the friends of the common
cause, amongst the brethren (as they named themselves, after the manner
of the early Christians); a fraternity, for instance, of students at
Oxford, not, like Wesley’s little society in the same place, taking
joyfully the persecution of a tolerant age, which conferred distinction
at an easy rate; but adopting every precaution to walk unseen, and
all not enough; trusting their lives to each other’s hands; abetting
the escape; supplying the disguise; recommending the fugitive to
some distant and less suspected brother; kneeling with him before he
went his way, to beg God’s blessing upon his enterprise, bidding him
farewell with sorrowful heart and sad foreboding that they should see
his face in the flesh no more; baffling the inquiry of the pursuer;
risking the character and fate of an accomplice; braving the rack
rather than betray the innocent blood; dying by inches in the dungeon,
the feet in the stocks, or the neck and legs trussed together by some
devilish engine (“the devil on the neck”) which contracted with the
writhings of the sufferer, till his frame was crushed within its iron
grasp;[310]--these are some of the silent horrors of those dreadful
days, of which it is impossible to read, without thankfulness to
Providence that our lot has been cast on times of greater charity; and
without confessing that, grievous as the evil is of capricious division
upon religious questions, it is far less than that of barbarous
coercion to unanimity; and bad as the spirit is, wherever it exists,
which would preach Christ only of envy and strife, it is after all
better than that which would make a way for his reception by fire from
heaven.
But though many of the reformers thus kept their opinions to
themselves, or only communicated them to their confidential companions,
and when the doors were shut; there were others of a more intrepid
spirit, who saved the commissioners the necessity of resorting to
force or fraud for their conviction by publicly contending for the
faith, and even carrying the war into the enemy’s borders. A martyr of
this kind was Dr. Barnes; he preached openly at Paul’s Cross, where
he upheld the doctrine of justification by faith only, (a tenet that
seems to have been almost as unpalatable to the Roman catholics as a
renunciation of transubstantiation itself,) and challenged Gardiner
to the controversy, against whom indeed this sermon was directed,
in reply to one which he had delivered from the same popular pulpit
shortly before. There is a passage in his discourse very expressive of
the rude style of preaching which in those days prevailed, and which
the friars in Italy, and probably elsewhere, have not yet entirely
abandoned. Barnes calls upon Stephen Gardiner by name to answer him;
alluding in “a pleasaunt allegory” (as John Fox expresses it--an
opinion to which the priests in Spanish America would still subscribe)
to a cock-fight, wherein he likens Gardiner to a fighting cock, and
himself to another, and reproaches his antagonist with lacking good
spurs, as being a _garden_-cock; then shifting his joke, he taxes him
with being a bad _gardener_, as having set evil herbs in the garden
of God’s Scriptures; and once more changing his weapon, he accuses
him of a want of logic and grammar-rules; alleging, in reference to
the act of the Six Articles, that if he had expressed himself in the
schools as he had done at the Cross, he would have given him six
stripes.[311] Latimer’s sermons, almost the only complete specimens
we have of the pulpit oratory of that time, are full of the same
familiar, not to say mean, images,--tales of Robin Hood, or of the
Godwin Sands, or of an execution at Oxford, or of the woman going to
church at St. Thomas of Acres, because she could not get a wink of
sleep in any other place--mixed up with puns the most idle and similes
the most unsavoury.[312] Two other sermons we have seen of the same
date, by one Thomas Lewer, a master of St John’s College, Cambridge,
preached the one at Paul’s Cross, the other before the king, and
both in the year 1550, and these are not much less conversational in
their tone than those of Latimer. The coarse material of hortatory
theology at the Reformation and before it, imparts its character in
a degree to our Homilies, which, however full of sound doctrine and
wholesome advice, would often not a little shock the sense of ears
polite, were they to be faithfully delivered in our churches. And
later still, Fuller tells us, in his History of the University of
Cambridge, of a country parson in his time who preached at St. Mary’s
on the words, “God hath _dealt_ to every one the measure of faith”
(Rom. xii. 3.;) when, in a fond imitation, as he says, of Latimer’s
famous card sermons, he followed out the metaphor of _dealing_; that
men should play _above-board_, or avoid dissimulation; not _pocket_
the cards, or improve their gifts; _follow suit_, that is, wear the
surplice, and conform to ceremonies.[313] Jeremy Taylor sometimes
narrowly escapes the like extravagance. South approaches it still more
frequently, and almost with as little ceremony as would have been
used a century earlier; and even in the majestic and sober Barrow,
expressions, if not figures, occasionally startle us, as below the
dignity of the pulpit and the gravity of the Christian teacher. Even
he does not scruple to talk of “time rendering God’s goodness more
precious, as it doth gold and wine,”--of the difficulty of curing a
wounded reputation, and “spreading the plaster so far as the sore hath
reached,”--of “the fox who said that the grapes were sour, because he
could not reach them; and that the hare was dry meat because he could
not catch it,”--of the man who would have his sickle in another’s
corn, or an oar in another’s boat, being in no condition to wonder
if his fingers be rapped,”--of “liberality being the most beneficial
traffic that can be, seeing that it is bringing our wares to the best
market, and letting out our money to the best hands; God repaying
us with vast usury, an hundred to one being the rate he allows at
present, and above a hundred millions to one the rate he will render
hereafter, so that if we will be merchants this way, we shall be sure
to thrive.”[314] Soon after this time pulpit oratory began to go upon
stilts; and, becoming more remote from the conceptions and phraseology
of the vulgar, lost much of its interest with them, and influence over
them, and at length made way for the field preacher, who spoke to them
once again, as it were, in the Hebrew tongue, to which they gave the
more silence. Whilst, however, we may regret the want of the nervous
asperity of style and profusion of matter of the days of Barrow, we may
congratulate ourselves upon our escape from the old-wives’ tales of the
days of Latimer. They had their origin in a very different state of
society, and a very different condition of the church. Something must
be ascribed to the general rudeness of an age when bear-baiting was
the amusement which a queen provided for the foreign ambassadors, and
of which herself and her court were willing spectators;--when a fool
was a part of the establishment even of the most refined households,
and his uncouth jokes were paid for by the year;--when the martyr in
prison could in all sober sadness address words of comfort to his
fellow-sufferer, “_Green_,” as a dainty dish for the Lord’s own tooth;
or to _Philpot_, as “a pot filled with the most precious liquor;”--and
when at the stake, not think it out of character, or out of season,
to crack a jest upon his own dress or his own corpulence. Something,
again, must be imputed to the circumstances under which a preacher
before the Reformation, and indeed for many years subsequent to it,
delivered his sermon. It was very frequently in the open air that he
spake--from the steps of a cross, as at Paul’s Cross, the most famous
of the day; the congregation assembling around it, and only adjourning
to the “shrouds” (as some of the vaults of the church were called) when
the weather was unfavourable. Latimer’s sermons before Edward VI. were
preached in a garden of the palace of Westminster, the people having
admission, and the king hearing them from one of his windows.[315] The
effect of such an arrangement was, to divest sermons of all form; to
render them vernacular and colloquial: they were, in fact, what their
name indicates--not harangues, nor orations, but unwritten discourses,
or at most from notes,[316] and partook of all the characteristics
of ordinary discourse; the preaching from “bosom sermons,” or from
writing, being considered a lifeless practice before the Reformation,
and a fit subject of reproach; and the origin of it was, perhaps, no
other than an apprehension of the preacher in those days of jealousy,
lest he should be caught in his words, and misrepresented to those
in power, which induced him to commit his thoughts to paper; or a
determination of his superiors that he should be held to whatever he
uttered from the pulpit, which compelled him to do so.[317] Something
again, is to be referred to the connection which subsisted in Roman
Catholic times between the church and the stage. The Bible histories
were dramatised; a generation which had not the Scriptures to read,
and could not have read them if they had, were taught by theatrical
representation. It was upon this principle that the use of images
was defended: they were said to be the poor man’s books; and miracle
plays were actually performed in the churches. This ill-omened union,
however, without exalting the theatre, debased theology, and constantly
justified the apprehensions which Andrew Marvel expressed in the
particular instance of Paradise Lost, lest the poet
“Should ruin (for he saw him strong)
The sacred truths to fable and old song;”--
or lest,
----“if a work so infinite be spann’d,
Jealous he was that some less skilful hand
(Such as disquiet always what is well,
And by ill imitating would excel)
Might hence presume the whole creation’s day,
To change in scenes, and show it in a play.”
Lastly, much of this coarseness and levity, which, according to our
present notions, seems to border on the profane, was to be put to
the account of the friars. They were the popular preachers of their
day. Their Lent sermons attracted multitudes; and as their order had
its very foundations laid in the taste of the many, its daily bread
depending upon the mites which were cast into the treasury, and
the amount of such contributions (individually so small) resulting
altogether from their number, no pains were spared to minister to the
vulgar appetite, on every occasion, such viands as were most palatable;
and the subtleties of the school doctors and their operose learning
gave way before the language, allusions, and illustrations of common
life; and the homely story and the broad joke mingled themselves with
subjects the most sacred. But whatever the cause might be, the style of
the Roman Catholic preacher was extremely familiar; and this fashion,
we have seen, had not entirely worn itself out in the first century
after the Reformation.
But to return to the thread of our narrative. Out of the examinations
and convictions that took place under the Six Articles one good
at least issued--that Cranmer appears to have been hereby led to
re-consider his opinion on transubstantiation. Hitherto it had been
strictly conformable to the doctrine of the church of Rome: he now
saw many intelligent men, powerful in the Scriptures, brought up as
offenders against this cardinal dogma, and heard them vindicate their
heterodoxy in a manner to make an impression upon a candid mind like
his own; so that by the end of the reign of Henry, his belief on this
article had undergone a change, and one of his earliest acts under
Edward was to avow and proceed upon it.
It has been said, that from the date of the dissolution of the
religious houses, the Reformation laboured in its progress. Even Henry
seems to have been appalled at the violent reaction which followed,
and to have held his hand. But those wise and good men whose object it
had been all along to save what they could of the wreck, out of which
to construct another ark, were still on the watch to promote the great
cause in which they were embarked, both by permanent institutions and
present instruction. Accordingly, whoever might be the advisers of
the measure, out of the spoils of the monasteries six new bishoprics
were now founded--those of Westminster (since suppressed), Chester,
Gloucester, Peterborough, Oxford, and Bristol, together with deaneries
and prebends respectively annexed, all slenderly endowed, and upon
the whole a sad falling off from the splendid expectations which the
king had originally held forth of eighteen new sees, together with a
proportional number of suffragrans--expectations which the act of
suppression had encouraged, and by which many were reconciled to the
confiscation of the church property, as hoping that it was only to
be fused and cast into a better mould. Its authors, however, “liked
not that paying again; it was a double trouble.” Accordingly they
compounded with the creditor, and the dividend (with the addition of
funds for the endowment of some of the metropolitan hospitals, a few
professorships in either university, and a college in Cambridge,) was
what we have seen. The cathedrals fared better than the monasteries;
having been hitherto in the hands of the regulars, they were now put
upon the same footing as the new institutions of the like kind, and
their revenues appropriated to the maintenance of secular dignitaries.
Here, however, the plan proposed by Cranmer, owing probably to the
opposition of the Roman Catholic party, was not adopted. In the
settling down of the establishment once more, it was his wish that
the cathedrals should be converted into theological colleges; that
readers of divinity, of Hebrew, and of Greek should be attached to
them; that a body of students should be maintained in them, out of
whom the bishops might always find clerical recruits duly qualified
for the pastoral office; that here, in short, should be realised a
second time the institution which Samuel (the great reformer of his
own church) established throughout all the land of Israel, “schools
of the prophets,” and that thus might be filled up most effectually
the gap which had been occasioned in the system of public instruction
by the extinction of the religious orders. What might have been the
effect of such a measure, which would have completed the Reformation
in an important particular where it was left greatly defective, it
may now be in vain to conjecture. Whether such establishments might
not have contributed to stave off the crisis which was at hand from
the puritans--a party then beginning to take a shape, and which owed
its rapid development to the ineffectual opposition presented to it
by a feeble and ignorant clergy--whether much schism and separation
of a more recent date might not have been escaped by the aspect
which these conspicuous pillars of orthodoxy would have presented in
different districts, and to which public opinion might have looked,
as to light-houses, for a guidance--whether, fertile as our church
has been in great divines, the harvest might not have proved still
more abundant when a regular theological education, comprising a sound
knowledge of Hebrew, of the Fathers, of whatever else might conduce
to the formation of the instructed scribe, fell systematically to
the lot of all who were intended for the ministry;--whether a cheap
education like this would not have afforded opportunities for youths
of promise amongst the poorer classes to emerge from obscurity, and
to enter a profession for which nature had fitted them, but accident
had shut to the door; whether the church would not have been a gainer
by the additional talent which would thus have been called forth in
her service, when the “yeoman’s sons,” by whom, according to Latimer,
“the faith in Christ had been hitherto maintained chiefly,” and “the
husbandman’s children,” who are often endowed (as Cranmer strenuously
argues upon this very subject) with singular gifts, would have sent in
their contribution to the public stock;--and whether that same cause
of attachment which bound the common people to the friars, and through
them to the church itself, namely, the feeling that they had a personal
interest and relationship in many of its ministers, would not have been
hereby more effectually perpetuated:--or, on the other hand, whether
such institutions might not have withdrawn the clergy too much from
all secular intercourse, and prevented those connections of private
friendship or private tuition from being formed, to which our schools
and universities give occasion;--whether the alliance between church
and state is not principally continued by such interlacements, and
would not be greatly weakened by their disruption;--whether, again,
the provision which our cathedrals (on their present footing) offer
to the younger sons of powerful families (as the monasteries once
did) does not pledge those families more deeply to the maintenance of
the establishment;--whether the rewards, again, which they enable the
church occasionally to confer on those who have done her good service
as men of letters may not contribute to create a learned clergy, by
furnishing the means of learned leisure--is altogether a problem which
it is much more easy to state than to solve.
Nor had the Reformers only to watch their opportunity for the
foundation of permanent institutions by which religion might be then
and for ever promoted; but whenever a favourable moment was afforded
for putting forth sound instruction to the people, they had to seize
upon it. During the reign of Henry this could only be done by being
instant in season, the season too being generally short, and always
precarious; liable to be affected by the character of a marriage, and
the duration of it; by a continental treaty; by a vote in parliament
satisfactory or the contrary; in short by the humour of a prince at
once in the highest degree capricious and resolute. Something, however,
was done; and we shall now gather up a few dropped stitches which we
have intentionally passed in this chapter, in order that our subject
might meet with no interruption.
The vulgar work of destruction did not prevail; even under Henry, to
the total exclusion of every other. In 1536, certain articles were set
forth by the convocation, and with the king’s authority, which had
for their title, “Articles devised by the Kinge’s Highness’ Majestie
to stablyshe Christen quietnes,” &c., much diversity of opinion
having sprung up in the country, as the preamble informs us, both
upon the essentials and ceremonials of which they treat. They are ten
in number, and rather indicate that a reformation was abroad, than
that it was achieved. They allow the use of images, but endeavour to
guard against their abuse; sanction prayers to the saints, but with a
caution against superstition; defend the doctrine of purgatory, though
with some hesitation, and with a positive rejection of pope’s pardons
and masses of _scala cœli_; assert the sacraments of penance,
baptism, and the Lord’s Supper; maintaining, with regard to the two
latter, that infants dying before baptism perish everlastingly, and
that the real body and blood of our Lord is present in the elements;
but justification on the ground of merit they disclaim altogether,
giving to Christ, and to Him only, the praise; and the faith of a
Christian they consider to be comprehended in the canonical Scriptures,
and the three creeds alone. It may be well to observe, inasmuch
as the observation throws some light upon the spirit in which the
formularies of our church were conceived, even at this remote period
of the Reformation, that Melancthon is with reason believed to have
had a voice in the Articles of 1536. So early as 1534 he was pressed
to come to England and assist in completing the regeneration of the
church; and invitations to the like effect continued to be forwarded to
him. In 1535 we find him suggesting, by letter to Henry, the necessity
of issuing a simple form of doctrine, such as might be agreed upon
by learned men; and at the same time adding, that Dr. Barnes, whom
he calls Antonius (afterwards the martyr but then Henry’s ambassador
in Germany,) had been “very carefully discussing with him _certain
articles_, to whom he had given his opinion upon them in writing.”
Certain it is that in the very next year these of King Henry came out,
and that the definition of justification contained in one of them is a
translation from the “Loci Theologici” of this Lutheran reformer.[318]
Nor was this all: the measure which was dealt out to the degenerate
Jews by Antiochus and his servants had, in a lower degree, long
obtained amongst the ecclesiastical powers in England. “When they
had rent in pieces the book of the law which they found, they burnt
them with fire; and wheresoever was found with any the book of the
testament ... the command was, that they should put him to death. Thus
did they by their authority unto the Israelites every month, to as
many as they found in their cities.”[319] But in the year 1537, the
whole Bible translated into English by Tindall, Rogers, and perhaps by
Coverdale[320] (the staple of all future editions,) bearing, however,
at first the title of Matthew’s Bible, the better to recommend it,
Tindall having recently died in the full odour of heresy, was published
in England; and by the influence of Cranmer and Cromwell, the king’s
license was procured that it should be freely bought and sold, and his
command issued that a copy of it should be set up in every church.
This was a day of rejoicing to the Archbishop Cranmer, greater, says
he, “than had there been given him a thousand pounds.”[321] Nor to
him only; the people, long thirsty for the word, now rushed to the
waters of life and drank freely: whosoever had the means bought the
volume; where the cost was too great for an individual, neighbours and
fellow-apprentices would unite purses and buy in common; a man would
be seen at the lower end of his church on a Sunday reading it aloud,
whilst numbers flocked about him to listen and learn; and the one
great topic of the time made its way even into taverns and alehouses,
where it seems to have been often the subject of vehement and angry
debate.[322]
The same year was distinguished by another work, calculated to advance
the Reformation a step farther. “The Institution of a Christian Man,”
or the _Bishops’ Book_, as it was called in popular language,
from the quality of those who were chiefly concerned in composing
it. It consists of an exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, the Seven
Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Pater-noster, the Ave Maria;
to which are annexed the two articles on Justification and Purgatory
(as they were published in 1536), the others having been inserted in
the body of the work under their respective heads. The mere index of
contents is enough to show that much still remained for the reformers
to do; still much was herein done. The corruption of man was strongly
asserted, his faculties as well as his appetites, his reason no less
than his will,[323] contrary to the doctrine of the schools, which had
limited its effects to the latter and lower half of our nature;[324]
the virtues of redemption were consequently vindicated, and were placed
in a position from which the dogma of merit had depressed them. The
superstitious attention to trifles of ceremonial, whilst the great
moral duties were disregarded, was rebuked--the dread, for instance, of
eating an egg on Friday, as contrasted with the indifference felt for
a breach of the most fundamental laws of charity.[325] The dishonest
substitution, in sermons, of fables and inventions of men, for the
Scriptures, was reproved, together with all wilful misrepresentation
of the doctrines contained in the same.[326] On the whole, this was
the culminating point of the Reformation, during the reign of Henry:
henceforward, that is, from the year 1538, with few intermissions, it
ostensibly, though perhaps not in reality, declined.[327]
In 1543 another work appeared, under the sanction of the king and
the convocation:[328] it had for its title, “A Necessary Doctrine
and Erudition for any Christian Man,” and was vulgarly called “the
_King’s Book_.”[329] It was, in fact, the _Bishops’ Book_
revised, with some additional matter touching free will, good works,
justification, predestination, purgatory--subjects which now began to
be discussed with great warmth and difference of opinion. On comparing
it with its prototype, it will be seen how far from progression
the Reformation had been during the interval. It came out, indeed,
whilst the act of the Six Articles was in force, and Gardiner in
power. The wonder, therefore, is, rather that it says so much, than
that it does not say more. The truth, however, seems to be, that it
was an act of compromise; a boon granted to the reformers (rendered
equivocal, indeed, by an infusion into it of the spirit of the Bishop
of Winchester),[330] in consideration of the sacrifice that was about
to be required of them; for the Bible in the vulgar tongue was now to
be once more withdrawn. To those “whose office it was to teach other,
the having, reading, and studying of Holy Scripture (it seems) was not
only convenient, but also necessary; but for the other part of the
church ordained to be taught, it ought to be deemed, certainly, that
the reading of the Old and New Testament was not so necessary for all
those folks.” For them it was enough to hear; and that nothing might
be wanting to convince, Scripture itself was quoted in support of
this sentiment--“Blessed are they that _hear_ the word of God,
and keep it;” where it is insinuated, for it would have been too bad
to affirm it, that the blessing attaches to those who _hear_,
not to those who read.[331] But if we meet with a stumbling-block on
the threshold of this new publication--for the passages alluded to
are in the preface--on further acquaintance with it we shall find our
suspicions, that Gardiner’s hand had been busy in it, strengthened.
The depravity of our nature, so stoutly insisted upon in the Bishops’
Book, is nearly overlooked in the parallel passage of the King’s
Book,[332] and the good offices of our Lord for the recovery of man
are set forth in a much less lively manner in the latter than in
the former place; where the one has enlarged upon the sufferings of
Christ chiefly as propitiatory, the other, though not disclaiming this
consideration, rather descants upon them as exemplary;[333] whilst
the one declares the condemnation of every man to be sufficiently
established, even though he were to be tried by the tenth commandment
alone, the other evades the humiliating confession;[334] when the one
denies even martyrdom to be a _meritorious_ cause of salvation,
and ascribes it altogether to the grace of God through Christ, the
other gives a different turn to the commentary, and escapes the
avowal:[335] in the one, the sacrament of matrimony is explained as
that which God commands to some, leaves free to all; in the other, a
clause is inserted, excepting from its provisions priests and others
under vows of celibacy:[336] in the one, the exposition of the second
commandment begins thus--“By these words we are utterly forbidden to
make or to have any similitude or image, to the intent to bow down to
it, or to worship it;” in the other--“By these words we be _not_
forbidden to make or to have similitudes or images, but only we be
forbidden to make or to have them to the intent to do godly honour
unto them, as it appeareth in the xxvith chapter of Leviticus.”[337]
It is true that the ulterior interpretation of the commandment in the
two cases does not differ so materially as might be expected from the
respective introductions; still the introductions are sufficient to
show that the spirit in which the commentaries were made was not, in
both instances, quite the same. Other examples of a similar declension
in the principles of the Reformation might be gathered from a close
comparison of these documents; at the same time, it would afford some
minute indications that a better knowledge of the Scriptures had been
meanwhile diffusing itself over the country, and that the six years
privilege of consulting them had not been altogether lost. Thus, it
may be remarked, that in the Bishops’ Book we read of “_one_
Pontius Pilate being the chief judge in Jerusalem;”[338] whereas
in the King’s Book the same individual is called “Pontius Pilate,”
&c.,[339] as though he were a character with which the people were more
familiar: again, in the former, the legend of binding “Christ fast to a
pillar,” and so crowning and scourging him, is inserted in the details
of his passion;[340] in the latter, this incident is omitted, and the
scriptural account is strictly followed.[341] It is singular, too,
that, in the one, the escape of “Lot and his _three_ daughters”
is spoken of; a mistake which the other corrects, his “_two_
daughters” being here the reading.[342]
In addition to the scanty means of instruction in a better faith
which were thus extorted from the king in his last years like drops
of blood, he was prevailed upon by Cranmer to issue orders for the
destruction of some favourite images, of which the superstitious
abuse was the most notorious[343]--those of our Lady of Walsingham,
our Lady of Ipswich, St. Thomas of Canterbury, and St. Ann of Buxton,
being the chief;[344] to sanction the introduction into the churches
of certain prayers or suffrages--the litany which we still use,
except that some objectionable clauses have been since omitted, being
of the number;[345] and to permit, moreover, the use of occasional
prayers, for the supply of temporary wants, or the removal of temporary
calamities--for rain or for fair weather--that thus the hearts of the
congregation might be enlisted in their devotions, and the lukewarmness
be counteracted, which was fast alienating them from public worship,
conducted, as it was, in a language of which they were ignorant,
though with errors of which they were aware.
Meanwhile, the same vigilant prelate supplied, as far as he had the
opportunity, the livings in his gift with men devoted to the cause
which he had at heart, and encouraged the more frequent delivery
of sermons; whereby, though much violent collision of doctrine was
produced amongst the preachers, still sparks of truth were elicited,
and light, though not without heat, was dispersed.[346]
Thus stood the Reformation, when Henry, who had now done all the work
which such an instrument was fit for, died, pressing in his last
moments the hand of Cranmer, to whom, and to whom only, through evil
report and through good report, he had ever been faithful and true. To
him he bequeathed a church which was little but a ruinous heap; its
revenues dissipated, its ministers divided, its doctrines unsettled,
its laws obsolete, impracticable, and unadapted to the great change it
had sustained.
It remains for us to trace the re-construction of these shattered
materials--to watch the wise master-builders as they pursued their
difficult task to its accomplishment; and beholding the pains, the
perseverance, the study, the time which it cost them, to distrust
the wild suggestions of an age of crude experiment and superficial
knowledge--an age which would rush in without knowing why, upon forms
and institutions which the sagest heads have grown gray in devising and
perfecting; and rather listen, as far as regards our church, to the
advice of the ancient, unpretending though it be--“Spartam nactus es,
hanc exorna.”