Ecclesiastical History of the English People

“ Over the mass of the nation their influence was small; and in the strife for power with the older nobles which they were anticipating they were forced to look to the small but resolute body of men who, whether from religious enthusiasm or from greed of wealth or power, were bent on bringing the English Church nearer to conformity with the reformed Churches of the Continent. ”

“ How should a measure not meet with opposition which proposed to alter the definite position of one of the greatest powers in the state, the House of Lords, and to abolish totally that ecclesiastical authority which had existed ever since the introduction of Christianity into England, and had not only survived the Reformation, but largely contributed to it. Episcopacy had grown up in the closest connexion with all English institutions. ”

“ Thus the clergy for a thousand years have been the scholars of the nation.
The national temperament deeply enjoys the unbroken order and tradition of its church; the liturgy, ceremony, architecture; the sober grace, the good company, the connection with the throne, and with history, which adorn it. And whilst it endears itself thus to men of more taste than activity, the stability of the English nation is passionately enlisted to its support, from its inextricable connection with the cause of public order, with politics, and with the funds.
Good churches are not built by bad men ”

“ It is always useful to see, as must be seen in any extensive survey, how large a portion of our ecclesiastical diversities is to be traced, not to religious causes, but to the more innocent, and in one sense irresistible, influences of nation, of climate, of race, of the general course of human affairs. The bitterness of English partizanship will be greatly diminished in proportion as we recognise the fact, that the divergence between the Church of England and Nonconformists springs from differences not so much of theological principle or opinion, as of social and hereditary position. ”

“ And within the English Church itself there was much to call for reform. Its attitude in the strife for the Charter as well as the after work of the Primate had made it more popular than ever; but its spiritual energy was less than its political. The disuse of preaching, the decline of the monastic orders into rich landowners, the non-residence and ignorance of the parish priests, lowered the religious influence of the clergy. The abuses of the time foiled even the energy of such men as Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln. ”

“ It is plain, that as a power, both civil and ecclesiastical, belongs to the essence and constitution of an English diocesan bishop, so the same is declared to belong now to the essence and constitution of an English king, who is the head and chief prelate among them all ”

“ The first principle of the ecclesiastical law in England is the assertion of the supremacy of the crown, which in the present state of the constitution means the same thing as the supremacy of parliament. This principle has been maintained ever since the Reformation. Before the Reformation the ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope was recognized, with certain limitations, in England, and the Church itself had some pretensions to ecclesiastical freedom. The freedom of the Church is, in fact, one of the standing provisions of those charters on which the English constitution was based. ”

“ The so-called High Church people emphatically insist that there is no break in the continuity of the Church of England, and that the modern Anglicanism is a direct descendant of the old British Church. ”

“ They formed a school of thought which bowed to the decisions of the past, craved Catholic unity, elevated the episcopal office, exalted Church authority, suspected individual opinion, gave prominence to social Christianity, delighted in ceremonial worship and symbolism, attached great importance to order and uniformity, and sought the mysterious operations of divine grace through material channels. The Anglo-Catholic spirit in most respects, as might be expected, appears more shadowy and in less power amongst the Bishops connected with the Reformation than amongst those who succeeded. ”

“ What gave a wider importance to these measures was their bearing on the general politics of Christendom. The adhesion of England to the Protestant cause came at a moment when Protestantism seemed on the verge of ruin. The confidence of the Lutheran princes in their ability to resist the Emperor had been seen in their refusal of succour from Henry the Eighth. ”

“ In this particular the claim of the English Reformers of the sixteenth century was the same as that of Luther and Calvin, or of Cartwright and Travers, and the whole question about what is to be recognised as 'primitive' or 'catholic' is one of interpretation and historical theory. The history of the Church in England was continuous from the Mission of Augustine—or, if we prefer it, from the Synod of Whitby—to the time when Henry VIII., upon a disagreement with the Pope about his divorce, cast off his allegiance to the Papacy. ”

“ Can any one doubt that the British power is not considered a Church power by any country whatever into which it comes? and if so, is it possible that the English Church, which is so closely connected with that power, can be said in any true sense to exert a Catholic influence, or to deserve the Catholic name? How can any Church be called Catholic, which does not act beyond its own territory? ”

“ Protestantism did not come into England for a considerable period after the change in the constitution of the Anglican Church, and when it did come its tendencies were quite as subversal of the authority of the Anglican as of the Roman Church, Protestantism is the mother of Nonconformism in England. ”

“ But its very provision indicates that England expects the state to-day to do more and more extensive duty for the individual. For one thing the state has largely taken the place of the church as the organ of the collective conscience of the community. It can hardly be said that the Anglican church has an articulate conscience apart from questions of canon law and ecclesiastical property; and other churches are, as bodies, no better provided with creeds of social morality. ”

“ It is the distinguishing merit of the English Church that, to a greater extent probably than any other religious body, it is at once Catholic and Protestant, and that without any formal assumption of reconciling the respective claims of authority and private judgment, it admits a wide field for the latter, without ceasing to attach veneration and deference to primitive antiquity and to long established order. ”

“ We have not yet lost our right in the nineteenth century to think of the Church of England as a continuous, historic, religious society, bound by ties which, however strained, are still unbroken with that vast Christendom from which as a matter of fact it sprung, and still, in spite of all differences, external and internal, and by force of its traditions and institutions, as truly one body as anything can be on earth. ”

“ The debt which the English church owes to him cannot easily be overestimated. He secured its unity and gave it organisation, subdividing the vast bishoprics, coterminous with kingdoms, and basing its episcopate on tribal lines, on the means of legislating for itself, and on the idea of obedience to lawfully constituted ecclesiastical authority. ”

“ Such robbery of the Church's wealth and places of worship urged the nation to take sides on the question of religion. From this time Protestant and Catholic became parties in the State, and the English Catholic preferred to side with the Roman Catholic rather than with the Protestant. The Protestant party in England grew up and increased from the party men who came to England from the Continent. ”

“ It may serve also to place us on our guard against that peculiar second intention in which the word national is commonly used by English ecclesiastical historians, writing either with the general object of magnifying and glorifying everything English as such, or with the more specific intention of making out what they consider a more satisfactory pedigree for the modern English Church establishment. ”

“ Remember that to be simply aided or supported by the empire does not make a symbolic ‘Beast’; a ‘Beast’ is a government, and to become a symbolic beast, a church must needs become an element in, or part of the government.
“There is but one church which this symbol fits perfectly, viz.: The established ‘Church of England and Ireland.’ This system, like the Papal, was a blending of church and state, an ecclesiastical empire. In the year 1200 England became subject to the Pope. In 1531, owing to a dispute between her king, Henry VIII, and the Pope, England withdrew from allegiance to Papacy. ”

“ The impious mass, the most shameful celibacy of the clergy, the invocation of saints, auricular confession, superstitious abstinence from meats, and purgatory, were never before held by the people in greater esteem than at the present moment." In other words, the independence of the Church of England was secured by those who, if they were not Roman Catholics, were certainly closer in faith to Rome than they were to Protestantism. ”

“ How widely the movement is extending in Europe is seen by what is passing in England, where choice has been made of a ministry disinclined to further concessions to the demands of the Catholic hierarchy, and where the archbishops of the Anglican Church are proposing measures to drive all Romanizing tendencies out of the forms of public worship in the Establishment. ”

“ Moreover, even the most loyal members of the Church of England, in spite of the points of principle on which they are divided from those other English Christians, resemble them more closely in many respects in their modes of thought, even on religion, than they do the members of other portions of the ancient Catholic Church from which they have become separated. ”

“ Then thirdly, there is a yet vaster multitude, baptised, married, and buried, perhaps by the Church, and therefore counting themselves Church of England, but who come but rarely within the orbit of Church life and teaching; and who, not to mince words, are semi-pagan. Only semi-pagan because the ethics, morals and traditions of England are Christian; and these people, knowing little of Jesus Christ, and understanding less, and not consciously moved by Him, yet not infrequently rise to heights of love and sacrifice which would adorn the life of a saint. ”

“ It is certain that the poor children of Catholics have in the English bishops most able and tender-hearted advocates, and that numerous monastic bodies of men and women are ready to second their efforts with devotion truly heroic. It is on the lambs of the flock that the hopes of Catholic England depend, and just in proportion as they are educated or uneducated, will they be ornaments or disgraces to the religion they profess. Nothing but superstition and vice can be built on ignorance; and the clergy in England are everywhere earnest in promoting the culture of the mind. ”

“ They had done what they could to check any indulgence to Roman Catholics in England, and it was monstrous to them that the Church of England, whose formularies and ritual had been defined by parliament for the maintenance of Protestantism, should be expanded to reintroduce doctrines and practices essentially Catholic. ”

“ The Catholic religion, subjected to no disabilities in either kingdom, and overshadowed by no hostile establishment—for Englishmen themselves in a few years will remove their present church establishment in the interests of their church and of Protestantism—will form another tie between the countries. English Catholics have always been loyal to the British government. Irish Catholics may become just as [201] loyal. ”

“ In the midst of the struggles of contending parties and the treason of ambitious nobles, the English prelates continued faithfully to fulfil their duties to the State, and the clergy at large supplied it with a succession of able administrative officials. Churchmen bore their share of the national burdens. The fleets with which the king and the witan sought to guard the coasts were raised by levies from every shire. To these levies the lands of the Church were liable equally with those of laymen. ”

“ My opinion may not be worth much, but I hold the strong conviction that unless Protestants make a great stir, and unless the bishops of the Church set the example, England, at no very distant period, will be Romanized. ”

“ This was entirely due to the growth of the Protestant feeling in England. Men came over to us within these few years with more advanced views on doctrine and ritual, and they did not rest until they imposed their principles upon the heads of the Church. This book was also enforced by Act of Parliament; but there is no evidence to show that it was ever used, for the death of Edward was drawing near, and that was the sign of another great change in ecclesiastical matters. ”