Herbert Pole

“ Last week I traced the history of the Oxford Movement, and to-night it will be my object to show how the Church of England has been benefited during the last sixty years through that Movement.
The Tractarians gave birth to a new spirit in the religious life of our country. I do not think that we can be otherwise than grateful for their work. As a result of it worship has become a greater reality to the people. Our services have been conducted in a more orderly and more reverent way than they were for centuries before that Movement began. ”

“ The nation tried by legislation, by protest, by letters, and by rebellion, to curb the Pope's authority in England, but it was not strong enough to succeed. The national feeling had not changed, but grew stronger as time went on. When Henry came the nation was only waiting for the happy opportunity of completing what had been so often attempted before. The people longed for their national independence. These aggressions of the Pope then were the first cause of the Reformation. England was more than weary of the Pope's demands for Peter's pence, for first-fruits and tenths. ”

“ We cannot desert our position either as to faith or discipline. That concord would, in our judgment, be neither true nor desirable which should be produced by such surrender. But we gladly and thankfully recognize the real religious work which is carried on by Christian bodies not of our communion. We cannot close our eyes to the visible blessing which has been vouchsafed to their labours for Christ's sake. ”

“ It would be foolish and untrue to say that the Puritans had not good men in their ranks, or to say that they had not some right principles upon their side. We must give them praise and honour for this. But it is their assumption and intolerance and desecration of which we so bitterly complain. We complain that they could not enter into the spirit of the Church of England, and that by anarchy and unlawful measures they tried their very best to destroy the Church. ”

“ It was because the Bible was looked upon as the sole authority in religious matters, as interpreted by our individual preferences, that so many dissenting sects have come into existence. Nearly every Christian sect professes to follow the teaching of Scripture, though we know that the sects hold very different opinions.
The Church, of course, also teaches—and it taught the same at the time now under review—that the Bible is our authority for our Christian Faith, but it does not hold that we are all capable of understanding it in all its depth of meaning. There are many parts obscure to us. ”

“ The Tractarians often used very forcible language to spread the truths they had at heart. In speaking of Rome Newman said, [8] "We must deal with her as we should towards a friend who is visited by derangement; for in truth she is a Church beside herself, abounding in noble gifts and rightful titles, but unable to use them religiously, crafty, obstinate, wilful, malicious, cruel, unnatural as madmen are. Or rather she may be said to resemble a demoniac . . . the system itself, so called, as a whole, and therefore all parts of it, tend to evil." ”

“ We have to call to mind that, at the time of which we are now speaking, the papal pretentions were more fully developed than at the time when Gregory sent his missionaries to England. Several of the objectionable doctrines of Roman Catholicism were now coming into prominence. Such as the doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy, and transubstantiation. The Pope of Rome then, unlike the Bishops of our days or even Bishops of England at that time, maintained a Court not equalled in splendour and magnificence by any other Court of Europe. The Pope was a king. Yea, more powerful than a king. ”

“ If only they could succeed in making kings believe that the Popes were the lawful possessors of all kingdoms, and that kings had their right of rule as a gift from them, the whole world might then be made subservient to the Church of Rome, and the Popes might then claim absolute obedience and command enormous wealth. But William was not to be frightened by even an iron-willed Hildebrand. He replied to those demands, that he would not hinder his subjects, if they wished it, from giving the Pope his pence ”

“ We have now reached that point of time in the history of the English Church when nearly the whole of England had embraced the Christian Faith. Many stalwart men had lived and died, many saintly men indeed, to spread the Gospel teaching. ”

“ Very few of the modern Independents believe in the doctrines held by their forefathers. It is the custom of some of them to preach about the non-importance of doctrines. There can be no brotherly unity, no close unity, between Dissenters and the Church until they acknowledge the doctrines of the so-called Apostles' Creed as a pledge of Holy Baptism, and of the Nicene Creed as a pledge of Christian faith and practice. ”

“ Whatever good we may think the Puritans did they certainly did immense harm, and their tyranny was greater than the tyranny which they tried to suppress when they killed the king. Their method was more autocratic than the king's was, and certainly quite as unlawful. The loss which England has sustained through these men in ancient works of art and architecture cannot now be estimated. The nation learned that the last state of the man was worse than the first. ”

“ It may be truly said that never has the Church been more efficient, never more beloved by Churchmen, never more beneficial to the State, never more liberal, never less formal, than it is in the present day. ”

“ If every minister is to be allowed to take his own course he may possibly give offence to his congregation, by omitting some ceremony to which they are accustomed as well as by adopting some ceremony to which they are unaccustomed." We must call to mind in this connection that in the days of King James no one had any idea, as some people have to-day, that separate bodies should exist with different forms of worship. The idea of separate sects would then have been repelled by the Puritans as much as by the Church. ”

“ The king did not bargain for such a man. You have all heard Becket's subsequent history. The king and he were in continual feuds. Becket had to fly frequently from the land, and to stay away from his See for years together; and at last, when a reconciliation was effected, some other cause arose that led Henry to utter some hasty words about him in the presence of his retainers. They, unknown to him, escaped to England, made their way to Canterbury, and in the coldest blood slew the Archbishop at the Altar. ”

“ Dissenters can still enjoy this money, if that be their wish, if they profess the faith which it was originally left to maintain. If they dissent from that faith they are quite at liberty to form congregations of their own. We can respect them for their sincerity; but if they demand that the Church's wealth should be taken away and be devoted to other purposes than those for which it was originally given, for this we could not respect them. ”

“ The Puritans were especially zealous to establish the supremacy of the Bible. They made our nation a nation of the Bible. Nothing was allowed in public worship which could not be proved or gathered from the sacred pages. They had so much reverence for the Book that they mixed up their ordinary conversation with Biblical phrases. Cromwell's soldiers rushed to battle with the words of the old Hebrew prophets on their lips. ”

“ The rural peasantry, who were fast being reduced to pauperism by the abuse of the poor laws, were left without moral or religious training of any sort. 'We saw but one Bible in the Parish of Cheddar,' said Hannah More at a far later time, 'and that was used to prop a flower pot.'" It was because of this state of things that the revival of religion took place under the Wesleys at Oxford. They themselves held private meetings for their own edification, and this led to their preaching in the fields or anywhere. This movement roused up the spiritual life of the Church. ”

“ Dissenters think that they have a right to form a Church for themselves, and each of their bodies thinks that its own particular form of government is nearest to what Jesus founded. The fact is that the form of worship which they themselves most approve of, and which is most agreeable to their taste, is the form which they are apt to think to be most agreeable to the Word of God. ”

“ The time of King James was the age of papal plots, and Roman controversialists arose to poison the mind of the Church of England. They found a worthy opponent in Andrewes, although controversy was not what be loved. No man, however, had as much learning as he to meet the arguments of Bellarmine, the champion of the Pope of Rome. ”

“ When you deal in matters of faith and religion, or matters that touch the Church of Christ, which is His Spouse, bought at so dear a price, you will not use to pronounce so peremptorily or resolutely quasi ex auctoritate, as ye may do in civil and external matters, but always remembering that in God's causes the will of God and not the will of any earthly creature is to take place. ”

“ This was a very unfortunate step for the progress of the Gospel in Britain. The Germans were heathens, who worshipped a different God every day in the week. They were very desirous of territory and covetous of power. From being allies of the Britons against the Picts and Scots they became the conquerors of our country. They peopled our land with their own tribes. They drove the British people into the mountainous parts of our island, and they almost completely exterminated the Christian religion. ”

“ William was firm in having his own supremacy respected, and once he asked the Pope to aid him in demanding this. He desired, on coming to England, to get rid of many of the worthless clergy, who had no virtue in them to recommend them to their office. He was certainly a religious-minded man. The Archbishop of Canterbury was one of these men, and it was to depose him that William appealed for the help of the Pope. In reply to this supplication, a papal legate was sent to England, with the commission to hold a Council to consider the subject. ”

“ But what have these facts to do with the history of Puritans in England? The answer to this I will give you now. Men who came under the influence of these reformers arrived in England even as early as the reign of Henry VIII., and brought over their teaching with them, and later on became a strong party here. In the reign of Mary, hundreds of our ancestors fled to the Continent to escape persecution, and fell in love with the reformers' teaching; and when peace was restored, and Elizabeth ascended the throne, they came home again. ”

“ Our forefathers were disgusted at the insolence of the Pope in thrusting into our Sees and benefices men of foreign birth, ignorant of their ways, their language, and their customs. They lamented that men who held our livings very frequently lived out of England and that all they cared for was our money.
In addition to these facts the state of morality and religion in England had fallen to a very low ebb indeed. Such a state of things could not long continue. The Protestants on the Continent were denouncing the evil lives of many of the Romanists. This spirit spread to England. ”

“ He was a good Churchman, and a good man for his times. He was a man more sinned against than sinning, and his bad acts of policy were not bad in intention. He was murdered by the Puritans as much out of hatred at his episcopal beliefs as through his influence against the Puritans. He had strong principles, but his fault was that he used wrong methods to enforce them. We must make allowances, however, for the time in which he lived, and we should remark that his enemies used more arbitrary measures than he used, to put down the teaching of men of Laud's school. ”

“ The Monasteries, of which there were many in England, gradually became defiled, and the clergy were given over to licentious living. The monastic clergy, who were called the regular clergy, and the parish priests, who were called the secular clergy—because they often were married men, and sometimes followed a secular craft to gain a livelihood—were very frequently engaged in disgraceful feuds. The secular and the regular clergy of Canterbury were notorious for their disagreements especially when the subject of dispute was the election of an Archbishop to their See. ”

“ It has been well to speak of him to show you that even in James' time, when the Church seemed to be going to destruction, there were men who stood up for its rights against the attacks of Puritans. There was at least one good Bishop, and that man Bishop Andrewes, who emphasized the teaching of the Church, and whose life was a model for his brethen to follow, who was as pious and gentle as he was undoubtedly learned. ”