CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF THE REFORMATION CHA I ductory HARACTER, free-will, and the accidents of life CHAP have their place in the corporate existence of the Church as in that of human nature, and the integral constitution of each is capable of great variety and great change, without any destruction of its integrity. The strength and beauty of the human body and An introthe human mind may be developed or they may analogy be cramped, but in either case the body and the mind still constitute a nature that is human; while it is evident that education, climate, and other physical or moral influences always exercise great power in determining the particular character of nations and of individual persons, both as regards body and mind: so that the strength and beauty of one place or one age may be quite different from that of another. It is also evident that vice, violence, and disease may bring about great moral and physical degeneracy; and that yet it may be possible for the degenerated race or individual to be restored to its normal condition by curative processes and influences from within and from without. But, come what may, the integral constitution of human nature remains under all these influences and changes of 19 A 2 CONTINUOUS VITALITY OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND CHAP condition: and though at one time it exists in a naturally normal, at another in a degenerate or abnormal, at a third in a restored condition; though now in the form of an ancient Greek, and now in that of a modern Englishman, it is still human nature in its integrity until death effects the work of dissolu Variety and change tion. A similar constancy as to vital characteristics, and a similar variety as to modes of existence, may be Church; observed in the Church. Certain Divine principles in the constitute its life, and the expulsion of these from a religious community brings about its dissolution as a church but the existence of them is consistent with great variety of external character, with a degenerated constitution, and with processes of restoration. Thus the Divine principles of Baptism, the Holy Eucharist, and the Ministry, are unchangeable; but there is much variety in the Liturgical forms by which these principles are exhibited and have al- developed. Thus the Church has presented a very different aspect at different times and in different places, and yet has always been the same in its integral characteristics. Thus political, social, and moral and some influences have sometimes gathered disease and devery neces- generacy around the vital principles of the Divine institution, and reformation has then become necessary. ways existed, times been sary Church of In bringing these considerations to bear on that complex series of events which we comprehensively include, for convenience, under one general name as the Reformation of the Church of England, two axioms may be laid down for the future guidance of both author and readers in the course of the following history : 1. The Church of England has had a continuous and never-ceasing vitality in every stage of its CHAP ancient and modern existence. ous; I its changes 2. Such variations as are apparent between the continuancient and modern Church of England do not necessarily indicate error in either, but must be judged on do not their respective merits, and with reference to the necessarily circumstances of the periods to which they belong. indicate error be fore or was The English Reformation must be properly defined, after indeed, as a readjustment of the Constitutional, What the Doctrinal, and Ritual system of the Church of Eng- tion really land. The idea that it was the foundation of a new Church, or that it was intended to be so by the Reformers, is wholly unjustified by history, and may be dismissed, for the present at least, as an absurd error. How far, on the other hand, such a readjustment was necessary, what mistakes were made, or whether any were made in carrying it out, and what are the advantages or disadvantages which have ensued, are questions which it will be the object of the following pages to elucidate. The most familiar aspect under which the Reformation presents itself to Englishmen is as a breach between England and Rome. This is, however, only one side of a history which has many other sides to be exhibited. Good men of that period wanted to free the Church of England from other tyrannies besides that of the Pope, and to effect changes which, standing by themselves, would probably have been accepted by him with little or no opposition. of For many years before the breach with Rome Yearning occurred there had been a widespread consciousness men every. that abuses had sprung up in our ecclesiastical where for system, that the religious institutions of the country tion were not fulfilling their vocation to their due extent, reforma |
