CHAPTER XXII.

ON THE BRITISH CHURCHES.

A.D. 1530-1839.

HE Churches of Britain, or England, had now existed for more than thirteen hundred years. Originally (for six hundred years) independent of the Roman see, as being beyond the limits of that patriarchate, they had in later times become subject to its jurisdiction. The invasion of Britain by the Saxons, and the subsequent mission of St. Augustine, by Pope Gregory, afforded the opportunity for extending the Roman power; and Augustine was sent the pall, the emblem of honour and authority, as vicar of the holy see. For many ages, however, we hear little or nothing of any exercise of jurisdiction by the popes in England: the English bishops and kings did not permit appeals to Rome. When Wilfrid, bishop of York, appealed against an English synod which had deposed him from his diocese, and obtained a decree in his favour from the pope, that decree was disregarded in England. Pope. Gregory I. had made a regulation in accordance with the canons, that the bishops and metropolitans of England should be always appointed and consecrated in their own country, and had no sort of intention to claim the right of confirming or ordaining them. And accordingly the metropolitans and bishops of our churches were always consecrated without reference to the see of Rome, till the twelfth or thirteenth century. Nor were our bishops sum. moned to attend synods held by the popes, until about the same period.

At length, from the time of Gregory VII., the papal jurisdiction was pushed into England, as it was into other countries; legates made frequent visits, held councils, exacted subsidies. Appeals, dispensations, mandates, reserves, annates, bulls, and all the other inconveniences of papal usurpation, followed each other in rapid succession; and for four centuries no country in Europe suffered-more and with greater reluctance than England. But the popes and the kings of England had, after much disputation, made their agreement, and the Church was their prey.

Religion had become deteriorated in England, as well as in the remainder of the western Church. A spirit of opposition to prevailing errors had been excited by Wickliffe; but he, and his followers the Lollards, advocated several erroneous and seditious opinions: they were condemned by the clergy, and persecuted by the state. The Scriptures, however, were translated by Wickliffe; and thus the way was prepared for religious improvement.

The scruples of Henry VIII. as to the lawfulness of his marriage with Catharine, the widow of his elder brother, led ultimately to the removal of the papal power in England, and to the Reformation. Henry in 1526 commenced negotiations with the pope for the dissolution of his marriage, requesting that the papal dispensation by which it had been contracted might be examined, or declared invalid. But the pope, under the influence of the Emperor Charles V., the nephew of Catharine, protracted the affair, by various expedients, for six years. At length Henry, wearied by the arts and chicanery of the court of Rome, had recourse to an expedient, first suggested by Cranmer, a learned doctor of Cambridge, who was soon after made archbishop of Canterbury, namely, to consult all the universities of

Europe on the question, "whether the papal dispensation for such a marriage was valid;" and to act on their decision, without further appeal to the pope. The question was accordingly put, and decided in the negative by the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Bologna, Padua, Orleans, Angiers, Bourges, Toulouse, &c., and by a multitude of theologians and canonists. Henry now being satisfied that his marriage with Catharine had been null and void from the beginning, privately married Anna Boleyn, in 1532; and the convocation of the Church of England immediately afterwards declared his former marriage null, and approved that recently contracted.

In 1532 and 1533 the king and parliament of England suppressed by law various usurped or superfluous privileges of the pope. First-fruits, tenths, pensions, annuities, payments for bulls, palls, &c., censes, portions, Peter's-pence, and all the other pecuniary exactions of the court of Rome, were abolished. Bulls of institution to bishoprics or archbishoprics, and palls, were no longer to be sought from Rome. The prelates were (as they had been for twelve centuries) to be elected and ordained in England. All appeals to Rome in ecclesiastical causes were suppressed; and every cause was to be determined finally in England, according to ancient custom. All that great multiplicity of licenses, dis"pensations, compositions, faculties, grants, rescripts, delegacies, &c., by which the pontiffs had so grievously enervated the discipline of the Church and enriched themselves, was put an end to. Dispensations were in future only to be issued by the primate of England. Thus the various branches of the papal jurisdiction, most of which had been usurped within the four preceding centuries, were removed. The Church of England acquiesced in these pro

ceedings, well knowing that no principle of justice or of right was infringed by them; and in fine, as the pope and his adherents exclaimed loudly against these reforms, and pretended that the papal jurisdiction thus suppressed was founded on "the word of God," and that it was most impious and wicked to deprive the papal see of any powers which it had possessed; the question was proposed to the bishops and clergy assembled in the provincial synods of Canterbury and York in 1534," whether the bishop of Rome has, in the word of God, any greater jurisdiction in the realm of England than any other foreign bishop?" It was determined in the negative. The universities, chapters, monks, friars, &c., throughout the kingdom, declared their assent; one bishop only (Fisher) refused to unite in this general decision of the Church of England; and thus the ordinary jurisdiction of the pope over England was regularly and lawfully suppressed.

The door was now open for gradual improvement; and though the king remained attached to some errors and abuses, several valuable reforms were made during the remainder of his reign. In 1537 and 1543, the convocation published two formularies of doctrine, entitled the Institution of a Christian Man, and the Necessary Doctrine and Erudition; in which various abuses connected with purgatory were disclaimed. Indulgences were rejected by the same authority, together with all kneeling, bowing, and offering to images; and all worship before them was to be directed to God only, not to the image of the saint represented. Images abused by pilgrimages, and other special honours, were removed; prayer to saints was prohibited, and their invocation only permitted under certain limitations intended to prevent idolatry and superstition. The superstitious use of relics was discouraged; and va

rious other superstitions, such as using gospels for charms, drinking holy water for the cure of diseases, &c., were prohibited. These were great advances and improvements; but the king opposed a full reformation, and in the parliament of 1539 made penal laws against any who rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, the celibacy of the clergy, and some other points. The convocation of the clergy in 1531 had acknowledged the king to be "head of the Church of England, as far as it is allowable by the law of Christ," a limitation by which they intended to save all the spiritual rights and jurisdiction of the Church. In virtue of this office, which Henry seems to have understood in a somewhat different sense from that of the convocation, he appointed Lord Cromwell his vicar-general, and visitor of monasteries; and a visitation of these institutions having been set on foot, they were found to be so generally corrupt and fallen from their rule, that they were all suppressed, and their enormous revenues were given to the king, with a portion of which he founded six new bishoprics in England.

On the death of Henry VIII. in 1547, and the accession of Edward VI., the work of reformation proceeded freely. The communion was now given in both kinds to the laity, according to our Lord's institution and the practice of the Catholic Church; images and relics, so long abused to superstition and even to idolatry, were removed; the clergy were permitted to marry; and the public prayers were translated from the old Latin offices of the English Church, with various improvements from the Greek and Oriental liturgies. These reforms were made by the united authority of the bishops, or convocation, and the parliament.

The popes had thought proper to consider England in a state of schism and separation from the