matory of the faith and discipline approved by spiritual authority.) In fine, the parliament pretended to prescribe rules for the judgment of heresy,, namely, that nothing should be accounted such, except what was contrary to Scripture, the four first councils, &c. or should be decided by parliament with the advice of the clergy in their convocation. (This related to the legal description of heresy, which was a crime by law, and liable to be punished by burning, until the 29th year of Charles II. It was only fit that parliament should exercise some control over the application of so terrible a punishment, and see that the clergy should not exceed the limits of their jurisdiction in defining new heresies. In Austria no one can even be excommunicated without the previous judgment of the civil powers.)°

Queen Elizabeth at all events never went so far as some sovereigns of the Roman communion, who have prohibited bishops from conferring orders, obliged them to take out the royal license to hold ordinations, prescribed the most minute points of public service, silenced preachers, suppressed sees, supported heresy against the church, compelled bishops to swear obedience to all their decrees in religion, future as well as past, obliged the clergy to read the bulletins of their armies in the churches, compelled bishops to submit their pastoral letters to the police, and instituted lay metropolitans called ministers of worship.P

V. If it be said that the Articles themselves declare, that "if any man, through his private judgment, openly breaks the ceremonies of the church which be ordained by common authority, he shall be openly rebuked as one that offendeth against the common order of the church, and hurteth the authority of the magistrate,” and therefore that the civil magistrate is acknowledged to have authority in such matters, and may alter the worship of the church as he pleases'-I reply that the common

• Rechberger, Enchir. Jur. Eccl. Austr. s. 259.

› See Part I. Chapter X.

Towgood on Dissent, p.

Append. I. II. III. 10.

Article XXXIV.

authority spoken of, means the authority of church as well as state, and the latter is only confirmatory of the former, or at least only temporal; and cannot effect alterations contrary to the will of the church, so as to have any obligation in foro

conscientiæ.

VI. In fine, the convocation of the clergy in the reign of Elizabeth completed the reformation of the church of England. In 1562, they compiled and authorized the XXXIX. Articles. of Christian doctrine, which were published and confirmed legally by the supreme temporal authority. In 1571, and 1603, they enacted canons in their convocations, which were confirmed by Elizabeth and James I. Thus the ritual, Articles, and discipline of the church of England do not rest merely on temporal authority, but on the original sanction and subsequent practice and custom of the catholic churches of these realms.

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION.

HAVING examined the mode of reformation in these churches, and the authority by which it was effected, we are now to enter on a most important question :-the principles of the English reformation. These principles have been so often misrepresented by the opponents of our catholic apostolic churches, that it becomes a matter of necessity to clear them from the imputation of schism, heresy, and anarchy, by the weight of facts.

It has been already shown that one leading principle of that reformation, namely the authority of provincial or national churches to correct doctrine and discipline without the necessity of waiting for the formal judgment of the Roman pontiff, or of the universal church, is free from all imputation of schism or heresy."

But we are assured that the main, essential principle of the Reformation was the liberty of interpreting Scripture according to our private fancies, in opposition to the doctrine and the judgments of the catholic church of Christ in all ages.

I believe that not one of those who brought about the Reformation ever ventured to maintain such a principle; and although some individuals may have spoken incautiously on the subject of catholic doctrine, when they were pressed with erroneous positions, deduced from spurious writings, which an imperfect criticism prevented them from promptly rejecting; the.testimony of a universal consent of Christians, was generally respected by those who were favourable to reformation.

In England the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture was most rightly maintained, not against a catholic tradition teaching the same doctrines as Scripture itself, and therefore

See Chapter II.

strictly confirmatory of Scripture; but against a tradition imagined to convey articles of faith in addition to those which Scripture contained. The title of Dr. Smythe's book "De veritatibus non scriptis," intimates the principle of the papal party. The Romish controversialists of that age founded some of their articles of faith on unwritten tradition merely against them it was maintained that for every article of faith there ought to be scriptural proof; but it was never supposed that particular churches were at liberty to affix whatever meaning they pleased to Scripture, contrary to the doctrine of the catholic church in all ages still less was it imagined, that private individuals might lawfully hold whatever doctrines they should themselves devise, without paying reverence to the authority of that branch of the church in which they should abide, and entire obedience to that of the church universal in all ages.

I proceed to prove that the catholic and primitive doctrine, and the authority of the church of Christ, as opposed to modern abuses, and to the license of an unbridled private judgment, were the principles of the English Reformation.

The abolition of the papal jurisdiction, it will be allowed, was a considerable act of reformation: but we find from history that those who supported that measure, argued not only from Scripture, but from the doctrine and practice of the primitive church, the œcumenical councils, the invalidity of later councils called general, the doctrine of the fathers, the customs of the church of England, and of other churches in modern times. Of these arguments we find a good specimen in bishop Tunstall's letter to cardinal Pole.c

The recognition of the royal supremacy was no inconsiderable proceeding of the reformation. We find that it was argued for, not only from Scripture, but from the doctrine of the fathers, and the exercise of such a power in the church formerly, and the customs and laws of the realm of England. Communion

C

Burnet, i. 250-257. Ibid. iii. Records, 52.

d Ibid. i. 257-261.

in both kinds was received, not only as being more agreeable to Christ's first institution, but to "the practice of the church for five hundred years after Christ." The question of the divorce of the marquis of Northampton was judged, not only from the authority of Scripture, but on "the authorities of the fathers" and councils of the church. In the public disputations on the eucharist at Oxford, A. D. 1549, before Ridley and the king's commissioners, the argument of those opposed to the Romish doctrine, was derived from the ancient fathers as well as from Scripture."

The "Necessary Doctrine," &c. agreed on by the whole church of England in 1543, says: "All those things which were taught by the apostles, and have been by a whole universal consent of the church of Christ ever sith that time taught continually, and taken always for true, ought to be received, accepted, and kept, as a perfect doctrine apostolic." It declares that all Christians must take the articles of the creed, "and interpretate all the same things, according to the self-same sentence and interpretation which the words of Scripture do signify, and the holy approved doctors of the church do agreeably entreat and defend ;" and that they must refuse and condemn all opinions, "which were of long time past condemned in the four holy councils."i

Cranmer evidently acknowledged the authority of catholic tradition. On what other ground could he have made those voluminous collections of extracts from the fathers, the councils, the schoolmen, and the canonists, of which we read? In his speech on general councils, A.D. 1534 or 1535, he said, "that when all the fathers. agreed in the exposition of any place of Scripture, he acknowledged he looked on that as flowing from the Spirit of God; and it was a most dangerous thing to be wise in our own conceits." We see another example of his

e Ibid. ii. 76, 77. f Ibid. ii. 104-108. h Formularies of Faith, p. 221.

Cranmer's Works, vol. ii. p. 14. by Jenkins.

Ibid. ii. 198-204. i Ibid. p. 227.