THE REV. R. B. PAUL'S LECTURE ON THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 92, 9 October 1852, Page 9

THE REV. R. B. PAUL'S LECTURE ON THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.

(Concluded from our last.) From this time to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Reformation, properly so called, was commenced in England, we find the same under-current of events steadily flowing- on. The mendicant friars, once the most powerful bulwark of the church, had now for nearly two centuries been wasting their energies in vehement disputes with one another. If a peasant or a handicraftsman, anxious for the safety of his soul, sought in all humility and trustfulness the advice of a Franciscan, he was told that all would be well with him, if he avoided the Dominicans. To justify this warning, tales were related of the pride and covetousness and sensuality of the rival order. Sick men, lying on the bed of death, had been cajoled into leaving all their property to some monastery. The'friars were in the constant habit of creeping into houses and leading captive silly women, whom they used as their instruments for extorting money from the master of the family ; the knuckle bones of sheep and the teeth of apes were exhibited to the ignorant populace as relics of martyred saints and confessors. Such were the tales which the mendicant friars were wont to relate of one another, and making the largest allowance for the exaggerated statements of men not over-burthened with conscientious scruples, and trembling lest

any portion of the gains on which they had fixed their greedy eyes, should fall into the hands of their rivals—we cannot suppose that these charges were altogether without foundation. But I mention them, not so much for the sake of condemning the monkish system, as of shewing that the boasted unity of the Church of Rome, if it ever existed at all, had certainly disappeared for centuries before the Reformation. When, therefore; the Romish controversialist would taint Protestants, with the endless variety of sects to which the Reformation gave birth—may we not reply—that acknowledging and deploring the humiliating fact, we, nevertheless, cannot allow that we have lost anything on the score of unity, in withdrawing from his communion, since we know that the seamless coat of Christ was rent into as many shreds as there were orders of mendicant friars —and that the Church was for ages shaken to her foundation by the warfare of the monks with the secular clergy. One of the most crying- evils of the monastic system, was the impropriatum, as it was called, of the tithes of parishes to the service of religious bodies. Not only the monasteries, but hospitals and chantries, and nunneries, and even lay corporations, transforming themselves for the nonce into religious societies, would take possession of the revenues bequeathed by pious founders for the support of the working clergy. So early as the twelfth century, this evil had attracted the attention of the Pope, who forbad the Bishops of England to accept the presentation of the monks to a vicarage, unless sufficient provision were made for the support of a vicar. But this decree was easily evaded by their appointing a curate to officiate in the parish. Having made this satisfactory arrangement, their next business was to find some Sir John (as the poor clergy were called before the Reformation), who was willing to serve them for the miserable pittance which they were inclined to offer. These unfortunate men, whose learning barely enabled them to read without much spelling the Latin prayers in the mass-book, were the butt at which every ale-house Wit discharged the shafts of his vulgar ridicule. They called them "ignorant Sir Johns," or " Lack Latins," or " Mumble Matins," or " Babbling Sir Johns," or " blind Sir Johns." Such were the ministers to whom the cure of souls in a very large number of the parishes in England was intrusted ; with what effect the ignorance, and brutality and vices of the people sufficiently testified. Let us, however, administer even-handed justice between the Church of Rome and the Anglican Church since the Reformation. _ A large proportion of the Romish clergy were ignorant and incompetent, because the pittance allowed for their maintenance was unworthy the acceptance of an educated man. At the Reformation a great part of the monastic property fell into the hands of cathedral chapters, or of laymen, subject to the same condition as that imposed oii the monks —namely, that a maintenance should be provided out of the revenues of the parish for an officiating minister. Has this condition been better fulfilled by us than it was in the days before the Reformation ? Let the starving curates of Wales, and some districts of the north of England answer the question : men solemnly set apart for the service of the altar, who are yet compelled to engage in secular pursuits,'because the miserable pittance doled out to them by the niggardly hand of the tithe-impropriator is insufficient even for the support of life. Bad as the monastic system of impropriations undoubtedly was, it would be hard, I fear, to prove that much has been gained by the substitution of lay for clerical impropriators. In either case the parishioners are defrauded of their rights—and if poor " Sir John" is ignorant and unlettered, the greater the sin, and the shame of those who denyhim the means of purchasing books, and the leisure to read them, if they were in his possession. Thus far I have endeavoured to give you an idea of the circumstances which were gradually preparing men's minds for the Reformation the ignorance of a great portion of the clenry —the unsetmly wranglings of tlie monks uitii the secular clergy and with one another, and the rapacity of the monastic orders. Another cause was the merciless extortions practised upon the people by the foreigners, on whom the best benefices were conferred by the 1 ope. in the reign of Henry 111., the Italians, who were beneficed in En-land, drew from die cuuiurv thrice the amount of the King's revenues. If to this we add the unedifying character of the Church-services, the prayers being always read

in Latin, and the almost total absence of preaching—we have grounds enough, I think, to account for the acquiescence of the people in a movement, the sudden success of which would, to one ignorant of these facts, be utterly inexplicable. The art of printing enabled those who were dissatisfied with the existing order of things, to disseminate their notions very extensively among the people. The writings of Huss, Zuingli, and Luther were secretly circulated, and tracts with popular titles such as " a Booke of the Olde God and the New," " the burying of the Masse," " A. B. C. against the Clergy," were so many appeals to the good sense of the public. Expositions of particular chapters of Scripture, which were thought to be in the most striking opposition to the errors of the Church of Rome were industriously scattered abroad. Above all there was a new translation of the Scriptures by Tindall, which was sold at a price forty-fold less than that of Wicliffe. An attempt was made to suppress this work by Tonstall, Bishop of London, who bought up all the copies of Tindall's translation, and burnt them at Paul's eross —a proceeding, of which the only result was, that a new and improved edition issued almost immediately from the press at Antwerp. Notwithstanding, however, all these favourable circumstances, a [Reformation would have appeared to a superficial observer to be farther off than ever at the commencement of Henry the VIII. reign. Who, indeed, could have supposed that the treasury, which the parsimony of his father had filled to overflowing would become so exhausted as to drive him to the plunder of the church, in order to refill it ? He had written with no inconsiderable learning in defence of the ancient faith when it was attached by Luther, and had been rewarded by the Pope with the title of " Defender of the Faith." Who would have supposed that before the end of his reign, this title would have been applied to him in a sense so widely different from that in which it was originally received ? He had obtained a dispensation from the Pope for marrying his brother's widow. Who would have ventured to prophesy—that this indulgence, intended as a means of binding the sovereigns of England to the popedom, would be the first cause of a movement which ended in their total estrangement? So true is the remark of Barrow, in one of his sermons, " One of the signs of God's providence is the wonderful strangeness of events compared with the natural course of things, or the natural influence of causes: when effects are performed by no visible means or by means disproportionate, unsuitable, repugnant to the effect.'' I willingly spare you the recital at any length of the disgusting details of Henry's divorce from Catherine of Arragon. The story may be told in a few words: he had grown weary of his wife, and fallen in love with Ann Boleyn. Application was made to Rome for a divorce, which the Pope for the present refused, for fear of offending Catherine's nephew, the Emperor : his policy was to prolong the suit. " Whilst it depended," says Fuller," he was sure of two great friends ; but "when it should be decided, of one great foe." Henry who had fixed his affections, such as they were, on Ann Boleyn, could not brook this delay, and find,ing that nothing but procrastination was to be expected from the Pope, resolved to act in defiance of him. The instruments selected for the execution of this bold measure, were Thos. Cromwell, and Cranmer, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. By the advice of the former a plan was devised for securing the submission of the clergy. Since the overthrow of Cardinal W olsey, the statute of prcemunire had become almost a dead letter, and in consequence, almost all the superior clergy had rendered themselves liable to its penalties. They were now threatened with prosecution under the statute— and were glad to compound by the payment of £100,000, and acknowledging the King's supremacy. On the 30th March, 1533, Cranmer Avas consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury and pronounced the sentence of the King's divorce in the following May, (the convocation having previously declared the marriage unlawful). Soon afterwards the King married Ann Boleyn. War was now openly declared against the See of Rome. The last bull that the°Pope ever sent into England was one sanctioning tht' consecration of Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, and in accordance with ancient custom, Crauiner had taken an oath of obedience to the Pope, whilst almost in the same .bri-Jiih, he did not hesitate to swear " that to the King and his successors he would be faith-

ful and true, and live and die with him against all people; that he acknowledged himself to hold his bishopric of him only." By what sort of reasoning Cranmer reconciled his conscience to oaths apparently so irreconcileable it would be useless now to enquire. The King had now fairly emancipated himself from the papal yoke—and one of his earliest acts was to issue commissions of enquiry into the condition of monasteries; the result of which was, that the year, 1536, witnessed the downfall of 376 oi those establishments. How far the proceeding was justifiable, it is difficult at this distance of time to decide. On the one hand, the visitors were accused of the most unscrupulous rapacity, of appropriating to their own use large portions of the confiscated property, and even of corrupting the nuns, to whom their office secured them free access. On the other hand, the monasteries were described by the commissioners as whited sepulchres, full of all uncleanness, reeking stews of sensuality, strongholds of the devil and so forth. Probably here as in most other cases, the truth lies midway between the two statements. Much of carelessness, perhaps of dissoluteness, might be found in the monasteries—but it was a cruel act to cast out on the wide world those, and they were many, who had retired into the cloister, that they might rest from the cares and anxieties of life, and hold closer converse with their God. In the words of honest old Larimer " it was a monstrous thing that abbeys, which were ordained for the comfort of the poor should be kept for the King's horses." It was melancholy, too, to see the noble buildings rased to the ground—the beautiful painted windows dashed in pieces—" the books" as we are told by an old writer, " some of them kept to scour candle-sticks, some tomb their boots, some sent to the grocers and soap boilers, and some sent over sea to bookbinders to be used as grey paper." Meanwhile the people, released from the controul of the papacy were working all uncleanness with greediness. Marriage having been pronounced not to be a sacrament, d£ vorces became common among all classes—the alehouses were filled with blasphemers, who made ribald songs on the mysteries of our faith, and called the bread of the Eucharist by base and indecent names. Nor were fanatics wanting, to take advantage of this period of general lawlessness. Predestinarians, who preached that the elect could not sin, nor the' regenerate fall from grace: and whose religion, according to one of Cranmer's chaplains " consisted in words and disputations ; in Christian acts and Godly deeds nothing at all." Anabaptists, who acknowledged that Christian men's goods were common, and acknowledged no judge or magistrate. Men of the family of Love, or Davidians as they were called, from one David George, who sometimes pretended that he was Christ, and sometimes the Holy Ghost. Like the reeking soil of Egypt, when the waters of the Nile have subsided " a race obscene Spa-wn'd in the river's muddy bed came forth gardens, fields, and plains, Were covered wi'h the pest; the streets were filled, And the land scauk, so numerous was the fry." Here was the beginning of sorrows for the Church of England—for herein was laid the foundation of those unhappy divisions, by which she has ever since been distracted, and which once brought her, as a national establishment, to the very verge of destruction. Yet all these evils were scarcely more than the necessary results of any great and general revolution either in religion or politics. It was a fiery trial through which the nation had to pass, 'before it could be purified—and if its effects are to a certain extent still discernible—let us learn from them a lesson of humility, rejoicing in our emancipation from the Romish yoke—but rejoicing with fear and trembling, and contrition of heart, believing as we do, that for our sins and the sins of our forefathers, we are permitted to bite and devour one auother, when all should be united for the common defence of the good cause. The remaining history of the Reformation may be told in few words. In the year, 1536, ten articles of religion were .set forth by convocation with the King's author ty. They indicate rather the commencement than the completion of a Reformation. Images were still retained, and the doctrine of purgatory asserted, though somewhat hesitatingly—hut 'justification on the ground of merit they utterly disckiln, ascribing all the praise to Christ, and to Him only. On the accession of Edward the VI., the work of Itelonnmion made rapid strides. In the year,

1549, the book of Common Prayer was set forth by authority, and was appointed to supersede every other form. It was compiled by Cranmer Bidley, and several other divines appointed for the purpose from the ancient Liturgies of the Church, a few hints being also derived from a liturgy recently drawn up by Mcl an cth on and Biicer for the use of the Archbishopric of Cologne. At the death of Edward VI., Queen Mary ascended the throne of England—and a fiery persecution .was carried on, in which Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, a distinguished leader among the Puritans, who had by this time become a powerful party even within the Church itself—Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ridley, Bishop of London, Larimer, Bishop of Worcester, and at least two hundred and twenty other persons were burnt to death at the stake. So weary had the nation become of these cruelties, that when Elizabeth, a Protestant, ascended the throne, the people hailed her accession with joy and thankfulness, for most nien were w'jary of a religion, which while it spake of peace, had poured forth blood upon the earth like water. Some few alterations were made in the Liturgy in her reign ; the supplication "from tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities, good Lord, deliver us," which was part of the Litany in King Edward's book, was now expunged an order was made that the sacramental bread should be continued in the form of wafers, and the language of the article which affirmed the real presence, was framed so as to allow considerable latitude of belief. The effect of these concessions was a conformity to the established religion of almost all the Romanists in the kingdom, till to their own misfortune, and that of the country they were required by the Pope to pursue a different course. And here we may close the history of the Reformation, for although some not Very important alterations were made in the Liturgy in subsequent reigns, the work of restoring the Church to her prfmitive purity may fairly be said to have been completed in the reign of Elizabeth. Whilst we may without sin pray for better times, when the church of England and the church of Rome, the Dissenters and the Episcopalians shall all be re-united in the bonds of a common charity, let us not forget to be thankful for the blessings' which we do possess—the privilege of studying God's Holy word, the right of worshipping as our conscience dictates, without fear of persecution—and the invaluable blessing of commu,nion with a church, which derives her commission from the Apostles themselves, as fully as the Church of Rome can claim to derive it—and which to this Apostolic discipline had added in all its integrity the purity of Apostolical doctrine.