ceding from the practices and principles of our ancestors, they only confirmed them; that in this point at least the State had been, as Field declares and elaborately proves of the Church, from the beginning Protestant.(1) There are indeed men so docile and gentle, so fearful of offending against anything which seems to be tolerated by God, or to be a punishment of his providence, that they would hesitate to resist even an unjust power once established, lest it should prove rebellion. But this question of the providential right of popery has been satisfactorily answered by Kettlewell, (2) from the decisions of the ancient as well as of the English Church. And Bramhall, with the concurrent voice of our greatest lawyers, after enumerating all the ecclesiastical powers and privileges possessed and exercised by the Kings of England from time immemorial, will satisfy them that there is no new act in the secular part of the Reformation : 'What did King Henry VIII. in effect more than this? He forbad all suits to the court of Rome by proclamation, which Sanders calls the beginning of the schism; divers statutes did the same. He excluded the Pope's legates; so did the law of the land, without the king's special license. He forbad appeals to Rome; so did his predecessors many ages before him. He took away the Pope's dispensations; what did he in that but restore the English bishops to their ancient rights, and the laws of the country, with the canons of the fathers, to their vigour ? He challenged and assumed a political supremacy over ecclesiastical persons in ecclesiastical causes; so did Edward the Confessor govern the Church as the Vicar of God in his own kingdom; so did his predecessors hold their crowns, as immediately subjected to God, not subjected to the Pope. On the other side, the Pope by our English laws could neither reward freely, nor punish freely, neither whom, nor where, nor when he thought fit, but by the consent or connivance of the State. He could neither do just ice in England by the legates without control ment, nor call Englishmen to Rome without the King's license. Here is small appearance of a good legal prescription; nor any pregnant signs of any sovereign power and jurisdiction, by undoubted right, and so evident uncontroverted a title as is pretended."[3] And so the learned' Sir Roger Twisden, [1] Field, p. 886. See also the whole of the Appendix to his third book, which Thorndike allows has never been answered, proving that the Latin church was and continued a true orthodox and Protestant church, and that the maintainers of Romish errors were only a faction in the same at the time of Luther's appearing.' So Usher's Treatise on the Religion of the Ancient Irish. [2] Works, vol. ii. p. 259. [3] Bramhall, Just Vind., tome i. Disc. ii. c. 4, p. 77. Thus was religion reformed, and thus by the Queen established in England, without either motion, or seeking of any new way not prac tised by our ancestors, but using the same courses had been formerly traced out unto them for stopping profaneness and impiety, whenever they peeped in the Church. And certainly, to my understanding, there can be none that will with indifference look upon those times, but he must (however he mislike the thing done] approve the manner of doing it. (2) the Reformation did the Church of England Neither in the purely ecclesiastical part of commit any act of schism: for schism is the denial of a lawful, not of an unlawful, authority: And the Pope's Vicarship to Christ,' says Bishop Bilson, must be proved by stronger and plainer evidence than yet you have showed, before we may grant it. As to his Patriarchship, by God's law he hath none: in this realm for 600 years after Christ he had none; for the last 600, as looking to greater matters, he would have none; above or against the sword which God hath ordained, he can have none; to the subversion of the faith and oppression of his brethren, in reason, right, and equity, he should have none. You must seek farther for subjection to his tribunal: this land oweth him none.' (3) We did indeed claim the right of acting as a free and independent Church- avióvouos, avrozeqahos, avvæev@vros '—' fortified with its own privileges, supported on its own pillars, subject to no foreign tribunal;' (4) but we were not guilty of that injurious uncharitableness and presumption to shut those out from the Church of Christ who can truly plead their just claims for their undoubted interest in that holy society.' 'Amongst whom,' continues Bishop Hall, we can confidently say, all the water of Tiber cannot wash the Church of Rome from the heinous guilt of this double crime.' (5) We did not excommunicate Rome, but Rome excommunicated us. 'We that were cast out,' says Hammond, 'cannot be said to be separate.' (6) Again-do men complain that the legisla ture took part in modelling our formularies? Bishop Taylor thought it [1] Works, vol. ii. p. 211. [2] Historical Vindication, ch. ix. s. 30, p. 196. (3) True Differ., p. 235. See Hammond, Of Schism, vol. i. c. 4, et seq. (4) Hammond, Epist. Præfat. ad Dissertation. 4, contra Blondell. (5) The Peace-Maker, s. iv., vol. vii., p. 51. (6) Of Schism, vol. i., p. 366. between us and them we maintain the negative, that is we go as far as we dare, or can, with warrant from the Holy Scriptures and the Primitive Church, and leave them in their excesses, or those inventions which themselves have we maintain all those articles and truths which are contained in any of the ancient creeds of the Church, which I hope are more than negatives.' (1) no small advantage to our liturgy that it was the offspring of all that authority which was to prescribe in matters of religion; that the king and the priest, which are the antistites religionis, and the preservers of both the tables, joined in this work; and the people, as it was represent-added. But in the mean time they forget that ed in parliament, were advised withal..... And then, as it had the advantages of discourse, so also of authorities-its reason from one, and its sanction from the other, that it might be both reasonable, and sacred, and free, not only from the indiscretions, but (which is very considerable) from the scandal of popularity.' (1) 6 In the reformation which came after,' says Laud, our princes had their parts, and the clergy theirs; and to these two principally the power and direction for reformation belongs. That our princes had their parts is manifest by their calling together of the bishops and others of the clergy, to consider of that which might seem worthy of reformation. And the clergy did their part for being thus called together by regal power, they met in the National Synod of sixty-two; and the articles there agreed on were afterwards confirmed by Acts of State, and the Royal assent.' (2) If some things are missed from our liturgy which may be found in the ancient Church, where they might be used without danger of abuse, Hooker, and with him, one after another, the greatest authorities, will unanimously reply,— 'True it is that neither councils nor customs, be they never so ancient and so general, can let the Church from taking away that thing which is hurtful to be retained. Where things have been instituted, which, being convenient and good at the first, do afterward in process of time wax otherwise, we make no doubt but they may be altered, yea, though councils or customs gen Is it complained that the reform was nega- eral have received them.' (2) tive ? Laud continues in the same place,— hood.' Are our services thought too informal? the wisdom of the English Church, for paring 'If Mr. Mason,' says Bramhall, ‘did commend In this Synod the positive truths which are delivered are more than the polemics: so that a mere calumny it is that we profess only a nega-away superfluous ceremonies in ordination, he did well. Ceremonies are advancements of tive religion. True it is, and we must thank Rome for it, our confession must needs contain order, decency, modesty, and gravity in the sersome negatives. For we cannot but deny that vice of God, expressions of those heavenly deimages are to be adored; nor can we admit sires and dispositions which we ought to bring maimed sacraments; nor grant prayers in an along with us to God's house, adjuments of unknown tongue. And, in a corrupt time or attention and devotion, furtherances of edificaplace, it is as necessary in religion to deny false- tion, visible instructors, helps of memory, exerhood, as to assert and vindicate truth. Indeed, cises of faith, the shell that preserves the kernel this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently the blossoms and the fruit; but, if they grow of religion from contempt, the leaves that defend done but by the former; an affirmative verity being ever included in the negative to a false- over thick and rank, they hinder the fruit from coming to maturity, and then the gardener For the subject of Reformation,' says Bram- plucks them off.... When ceremonies become hall, as it was not other Churches but their burthensome by excessive superfluity, or unlaw own.... so it was not Articles of Faith, but it ful ceremonies are obtruded, or the substance of was of corruptions, which were added of later divine worship is placed in circumstances, or the times, by removing that hay and stubble which service of God is more respected for human orthe Romanists had heaped upon the foundation.naments than for the divine ordinance, it is high Always observing that rule of Vincentius Lyrin- time to pare away excesses, and reduce things ensis, to call nothing in question which hath to the ancient mean. These fathers are quite been believed always, everywhere, and by all out when they make it lawful at sometimes to Christians. Yea, further, these turbulent add, but never to pare away: yet we have sons who have attempted to innovate anything pared away nothing which is either prescribed in saving faith, who upon their arising were or practised by the true Catholic Church. If censured and condemned by the Universal our ancestors have pared away any such things Church, we reckon as nobody, nor doth their out of any mistake (which we do not believe), opposition hinder a full consent. Hence it is let it be made appear evidently to us, and we that the Romanists do call our religion a negative religion. Because in all the controversies per (1) Preface to Apology for Set Forms, vol. vii., p. 286. (2) Conf. with Fisher, § 24, p. 100. See Stillingfleet's Vindicat., vol. iv., part ii. ch. 4. are more ready to welcome it again at the foredoor, than our ancestors were to cast it out at (1) Bramhall, Protestant's Ordination Defended, 1017, 1018, tome iv., D. vii. See also Dodwell's Reply to Six Queries; and Sir H. Lynde's Via Tuta, 12mo., 1628, p. 75. (2) Hooker, b. iv., s. 14, p. 502. the back-door.'-Errare possumus, hæretici esse nolumus. (1) Is a jealousy entertained of the influence of the foreign reformation? in condemnation of the discipline of Calvin, 'whom, for mine own part, I think incomparably the wisest man that ever the French church did enjoy, since the hour it enjoyed him.' (1) Calvin I truly honour,' says If the Church of England did join, as Bishop Bilson, for his great gifts and pains Bishop Taylor says, to their own star all the in the Church of God; but I may not take shining tapers of the other reformed churches, him for the founder of Christian religion, and calling for the advice of the most eminently therefore where he dissenteth from the learned and zealous reformers in other king-worthy pillars of Christ's Church I dissent doms, that the light of all together might show them a clear path to walk in,' (2) is this a fault? Or, rather, is it not a wonder. ful proof of strength and wisdom, that, with willingness to consult, (3) there was independence to refrain from submitting to any other rule than that word of God and ancient judgment of Christ's Church,' (4) 'in whose steps the reformed Church of England hath trodden, in her doctrine and discipline legally constituted.' (5) Of Luther, indeed, and Calvin, our great divines uniformly speak with respect. Touching Luther,' says Field, we answer that he was a most worthy divine, as the world had any in those times wherein he lived, or in many ages before; and that, for the clearing of sundry points of greatest moment in our Christian profession, much obscured and entangled before, with the intricate disputes of the schoolmen and Romish sophisters, (as of the power of nature, of free will, grace, justification, the difference of the law and the gospel, faith and works, Christian liberty, and the like,) all succeeding ages shall ever be bound to honour his happy memory.' And then apologising for the variations and errors in his doctrine : 'Let not our adversaries,' he concludes, 'insult upon Luther, for that he saw not all the abominations of popery at the first; but let them rather consider of, and yield to the reasonableness of the request, which in the preface of his works he maketh to all Christian and wellminded readers, to wit, that they would read his books and writings with judgment, and with much commiseration, and remember that he was sometime a friar, nourished in the errors of the Romish church, so that it was more painful to him to forget those things he had formerly illlearned, than to learn anew that which is good.' (6) ‘A founder it had,' says Hooker, writing from him.' (2) 'Mr. Calvin,' says Bishop Morton, 'is always worthy of the first place among the innumerable company of late divines.' (3) Worthy instruments,' says Sanderson, 'they were both of them of God's glory, and such as did excellent service to the Church in their times, whereof we yet find the benefit; and we are unthankful if we do not bless God for it; and therefore it is an unsavoury thing for any man to gird at their names, whose memories ought to be precious. But yet, were they not men?' (4) And while we of this day acknowledge that they were men, and can see more clearly the sad effects of their faults and errors, it may be humble and pious for us also to guard against any intemperance of censure; anything unbecoming that respect which Christians owe to those whom God has blessed with great gifts, and made instruments in great designs. Of the foreign Protestant reformers generally Field thus speaks, in a passage where he disclaims, in the most energetic manner, either sympathy or communion with 'all sectaries whatsoever':· 'It so fell out by the happy providence of God, and force of that main truth they all sought to advance, that there was no material or essential difference amongst them, but such as, upon equal scanning, will be found rather to consist in the divers manner of expressing one thing, and to be but verbal upon mistaking, through the hasty and inconsiderate humours of some men, than anything else. Yea, I dare confidently pronounce, that after due and full examination of each other's meaning, there shall be no difference found touching the matter of the sacrament, the ubiquitary presence, or the like, between the churches reformed by Luther's ministry in Germany and other places, and those whom some men's malice called Sacramentaries; that none of the differences between Meceremonies, were real; that Hosiander held no lanethon and Illyricus, except about certain private opinion of justification, howsoever his (1) Preface to Eccl. Pol., s. 2, p. 129. (2) Sufferings of Christ, p. 267; so also p. 77, and Perpetual Govern., p. 282. (3) Defence of Ceremon., p. 87. (4) Ad Populum, Serm. 7th, vol. i. p. 295. strange manner of speaking gave occasion to many so to think and conceive. And this shall be justified against the proudest Papist of them all.' (1) It may be, that some 'Lutheran or Calvinian fancies crept into the writings of private men, but they were not decrees of the Church.' (1) It may be, that crimes And such is the general language of were committed, and principles put forth the English divines. They claimed and under cover, as it were, of a new spirit acted upon their own liberty; but they rising up: but the same men who oppos did this in a respectful and kindly spirit ed popery opposed dissent as earnestly; towards those who were engaged in the and there is not a crime or principle of same battle with themselves against a dissent which had not previously been common enemy, with far less advantages, sanctioned by the old spirit of popery, and, as we have lived to see, with far and grew out of it as a legitimate devel greater risk to the cause of Christian opment. Violent transferences of Church truth among them, because they were property, insult to the civil magistrate, deprived by God of our two great bless-overthrow of episcopacy, tampering with ings, a monarchical and an episcopal re- the sacraments, subjection of ecclesias formation. tics to lay canonists and chancellors, de But whatever were their personal feel-parture from primitive antiquity, disreings towards the foreign reformers, Lu- spect to the fathers, these and other exther and Calvin were not the authors nor cesses of the kind, which those who do the modellers of our English Reforma- not understand the affinity between popetion. Melancthon, indeed,' says Heylin, ry and dissent charge upon the Reforma'states that he was sent for by Edward tion, are in reality to be charged upon VI., but was stayed on some occasion, popery. Popery had prepared the soil and, had he come, had come too late to and sown the seeds, and by express mishave had any share in the Reformation, sionaries had matured them and called the articles of the Church being passed, them out, and the harvest is its. (2) the liturgy reviewed and settled in the And it may be that evils have followed year before.' 'Calvin offered his assist- since the Reformation, which, from a neance to Cranmer; but Cranmer,' pursues glect of history, we are unable to balance Heylin, knew the man, and refused the with the evils which preceded it. But offer, and he did very wisely in it.' Pe- to follow in point of time, and as cause ter Martyr and Bucer were placed at and effect are two different thingsOxford and Cambridge, rather as private doctors, than any way made use of in the Reformation.' 'God,' concludes the same historian, certainly had so disposed it in his heavenly wisdom; that so this Chureh, without respect unto the names and dictates of particular doctors, might found its reformation on the prophets and apostles only, according to the explications and traditions of the ancient fathers; and, being so founded in itself, without respect to any of the differing parties, might in succeeding ages sit as judge between them, as being more inclinable by her constitution to mediate a peace amongst them, than to espouse the quarrel of either side.' (2) [1] Book iii., chap. 42, p. 165. So Andrews, Ad Bellarm. Apolog. Resp., p. 328. For the agreement of the Reformed Churches concerning the Sacrament of the Eucharist, see Bishop Cosin's History of Transubstantiation, c. ii. 'Our Reformation,' says Bramhall, 'is just as much the cause of the ruin of our Church and commonwealth as the building of Tenterden steeple was the cause of Goodwin's sands, or the ruin of the country thereabouts, because they happened both much about the same time. "Careat successibus opto." May he ever want success who judgeth of actions by the event! Our Reformation hath ruin vines of the seventeenth century repudiate any such interference, when incompatible with true consider the Reformation free from censure on this Catholic principles, as much as we should, and head, is all that it is wished to point out. Thus Andrews: Calvinista convitium, protritum jam est. Nemo hic addictus jurare in verba illius. Tanti est, quanti rationes quas affert pro se, nec pluris.' Tort. Torti, p. 309. And again, Resp. ad Apolog. p. 162. So Hickes: Luther was none of our Reformers;' 'Ours and the Lutheran are different Reformations.' Controv. Letters, vol. i. p. 44. And Hammond: I must tell you that the Church of England always disclaimed the being Lutheran and Calvinist, and professeth only the maintaining of the primitive Catholic faith, and to have no father on earth to impute their faith to.' View of the Apol. for the Infallibility of the Church of Rome, vol. ii. p. 621. [2] Ecclesia Vindic., part ii. pp. 68, 69. It is called by the names, or owning the dissensions of not necessary to inquire how far the foreign reformers really influenced the Reformation. (See Preface to Dr. Cardwell's Liturgies of Edward VI.) Some influence they must have possessed, though evidently less [see especially notes, pp. 14 and 27] than is sometimes asserted, when it is wished to disparage the Reformation. The fact that the di [1] Ibid. [2] Brett, Church Government, passim. freely, and without scruple, making use of them.' (1) ་ scribes her, was not willing to dissent from The Church of England,' as Jackson dethe Romish Church, save only in matters of great consequence.' (2) So Bramhall, eulogizing her moderation ed the faith, just as the plucking up of weeds in a garden ruins the good herbs. It hath ruined the Church, just as a body full of superfluous and vicious humours is ruined by a healthful purgation. It hath ruined the commonwealth, just as pruning of the vine ruins the elm. No, no, Sir! Our sufferings for the faith, for the Church, for the monarchy, do proclaim us innocent to all the world of the ruin in the same proceedings,either of faith, or Church, or monarchy. . . It is your new Roman creed that hath ruined the faith. It is your papal court that hath ruill custom when it is well settled, unless it 'It is a rule in prudence, not to remove an ined the Church. It is your new doctrines of bring great prejudices. ... Needless alteration the Pope's omnipotence over temporal persons, doth diminish the venerable esteem of religion, in order unto spiritual ends, of absolving sub- and lessen the credit of ancient truths. Break jects from their oaths of allegiance, of exempt-ice in one place, and it will crack in more. ing the clergy from secular jurisdiction, of the Crooked sticks, by bending straight, are somelawfulness of murdering tyrants and excom- times broken into two.' (3) municated princes, of equivocation and the like, that first infected the world, to the danger of civil government.' (1) VI. And now, when, wearied and unsatisfied with the coldness, and worse than coldness, into which as individuals. we may have sunk, (not by following the Church of England, but by neglecting and despising her,) young and ardent minds have been led to think that another reformation may be needful; let them learn from our great and good father of the English Church, what are the principles to be adhered to in such a 'going on to perfection,' and there will be no fear either of Popery, or of heresy, or of schism. In the first place, our Reformation was safe and good, because it proceeded upon an old and existing foundation. It did not startle men's minds by some sudden proclamation that the system under which they were living was to be abandoned; that the ground on which they trod was hollow; it did not commence upon the principle of unsettling their attachment to their church as it existed, even with all its corruptions. Unsettlement there was, and must be with every change: but it was not aimed at; it was strenuously resisted, even in thought, by the authors of our Reformation : They dealt,' says Bishop Bull, with our Church as they did with our temples or material churches. They did not pull them down, and raise new structures in their places; no, nor so much as new consecrate the old ones; but only removed the objects and occasions of idolatrous worship; (at least out of the more open and conspicuous places,) and took away some little superstitious trinkets, in other things leaving them as they found them, and So Andrewes: ritu vestro discessum est à casto integroque Dei Ubi mutatum quid, id eo factum, quod_in cultu ; et quod "ab initio non fuit sic."" (4) tion, and believing, as our divines did, And giving this praise to the Reformathat the Church of England is the most excellently instructed with a body of true articles, and doctrines of holiness, with a discipline material and prudent, with a government apostolical, with everything that could instruct or adorn a Chris tian church' (5)--what would have induced them, were they now living, to contemplate any change in her system, which would be felt or perceived to be a change, and not a natural development and practical application of principles already acknowledged? they have thought to hear young menWhat would full of earnestness and zeal indeed, but only just awakened by the teaching of others, and as yet unlearned themselves— as Whitgift describes the Puritans, 'so far from acknowledging this singular and unspeakable benefit [the purity of religion taught in the Church of England, and, not least, of its establishment by the State,] proceeding from the mere mercy of God; so far from being thankful for of it with hearty prayers,-seeking raththe same, from desiring the continuance er to obscure it, and to deface it, because in certain accidental points they have not their fantasies and proper devices?' (6) [1] Bull, Vindicat., sec. 26, vol. ii. p. 210. [5] Bishop Taylor, Preface to the Doctrine of Repentance, vol. viii. p. 244. [6] Whitgift, Preface to the Defence of the Answer, fol. 1574. |