Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/353

Rh THE REFORMATION.] ENGLAND 333 Effects of -he-new earning. independence of England. In idea the two things stand quite separate. Practically the two form two stages in a great series of cause and effect. The system of Henry has baeri epigrammatically described as Popery without the Pope. And the experience of a few years showed that Popery with out the Pope was a visionary scheme. But the various stages which are often confounded under ths one name of &quot; the Reformation&quot; must be carefully distinguished. There was not in England, as there was in some foreign countries, a particular act of a particular year which might fairly be called &quot;the Reformation.&quot; In England, if the formula &quot;The Refor mation &quot; has any meaning at all, it means the whole period of ecclesiastical change which was spread over a time of about forty years. It was a time of constant change, of change backwards and forwards ; its result was that, by the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, there was an established state of things wholly different from the established state of things which there had been in the middle of the reign of Henry VIII. But in the develop ment of the ecclesiastical constitution of England, just as in the development of her political constitution, there was no moment when an old state of things was altogether swept away, and when a wholly new state of things was set up in its place. The ecclesiastical development was far swifter, far more violent, than the political development, but the two were essentially of the same kind. Both were brought about by the gradual working of causes and their effects. As the- political development of England was something wholly unlike the violent change of the French Revolution, so the ecclesiastical development of England was wholly unlike the violent change of the Reformation in the Swiss Protestant cantons. The English Reformation then, including in that name the merely ecclesiastical changes of Henry as well as the more strictly religious changes of the next reign, was not in its beginning either a popular or a theological movement. In this it differs from the Reformation in many continental countries, and especially from the Reformation in the northern part of Britain. The Scottish Reformation began much later; but, when it began, its course was far swifter and iiercer. That is to say, it was essentially popular and essentially theological. The result was that, of all the nations which threw off the dominion of the Roman see, England, on the whole, made the least change, whilst Scotland undoubtedly made the most, 1 In England change began from above. But there is no reason to doubt that the acts with which the period of change began received the general approbation of the nation. It is plain that there was no general desire among Englishmen for strictly theological change. The old Lollard teaching, which had never quite died out, began to be of increased importance in the early days of Henry. There can belittle doubt that this revival of strictly theological dissent was part of the same general movement which gave life to the new learning. But the men of the new learning, the English friends of Erasmus, Colet and More, with their patron Archbishop Warham, were not, strictly speaking, theological reformers. They aimed at general enlightenment and at the reform of practical abuses and superstitions ; but they designed no change in dogma or ritual. Their more strictly intellectual movement merged in the wider theological movement ; but in the beginning they were so far distinct that the author of Utopia showed himself in the strangely incongruous cha racter of a persecutor. The small party of theological reform undoubtedly welcomed the changes of Henry, as being likely 1 On the whole, because, in some points of sacramental doctrine and ritual, the Lutheran Churches, especially in Sweden, have made less change than the Church of England has. But nowhere did the general ecclesiastical system go on with so little change as it did iu England. in the end to advance their own cause; but the mass of the The nation was undoubtedly favourable to Henry s system of nationfor Popery without the Pope. For three hundred years the Ppery pope had been the standing grievance of Englishmen, and ^ they were now rejoiced to get rid of him altogether. They were glad too to get rid of gross practical abuses, to reform the corruptions and oppressions of the ecclesiastical juris diction, to bring the clergy thoroughly under the power of the law. But they were attached to their old religious customs and ceremonies, and they had no love for new dogmas. In all this Henry and the mass of his people went heartily together. There were of course dissentients on both sides, men who wished for no change at all and men who wished for far greater changes. But there can be no doubt that the mass of the nation was satisfied with what their king gave them, ecclesiastical independence without theological change. On these points, the great body of Henry s statesmen and prelates were of one mind. Cranmer and Gardiner accepted and carried out the same Position system. We can discern then, as at all other times, two of Cran- parties with opposite tendencies ; but they are merely mer * n 1 opposite tendencies ; there is no open breach. We are tempted to think that there was from the beginning an organized Catholic and an organized Protestant party. 2 But this is the idea of a later time. The mass of the nation and the great body of the leading men were substantially of one mind. There was a party favourable to more change and a party favourable to less, but both accepted the degree of change that was given them. A few zealots were embowelled for denying the supremacy; a few zealots were burned for denying transubstantiation. The great body of the nation, the great body of its representatives and its leaders, accepted transubstantiation and the supremacy together. Nor is there any need to charge either Cranmer or Gardiner with hypocrisy. No broad line was yet drawn, such as was drawn afterwards. Men obeyed and ad ministered the ecclesiastical law, though they might wish it to be in some things different, just as men in all ages have obeyed and administered the temporal law, though they may have in some things wished it to be different. In truth Cranmer and Gardiner alike were trying to work a system which could not be permanently worked. They were trying to reconcile two things which could not be permanently reconciled. At last it became clear that Popery without the Pope would not work, and that men must take one side or the other. When it came to this, men in the position of Cranmer and Gardiner had to choose a side, and they chose opposite sides. Still, among all changes, under Henry, under Edward, under Mary, under Elizabeth, the mass of the nation conformed to every change. Again there is no need to charge them with hypocrisy. They obeyed the law, whether wholly approving it or not. A few on each side had consciences so susceptible that they deemed it their duty to defy the law. Among the mass of the nation some might be inclined one way and some another ; but they felt no call to court martyrdom on either side. For it must be borne in mind throughout that as yet the Religious idea of religious toleration, though it had presented itself toleration to the mind of More as a matter of philosophical specula- J&quot; 1 - tion, was unknown in Europe in any practical shape. Everywhere the dominant party, whichever it might be, forbade, and that in most cases under pain of death, the practice of any religion except that of the dominant party. Those who clave to the old religion forbade the practice of the new ; and the professors of the new doctrines, the moment they had the power, forbade the practice of the old. So in England, through the whole period of Reformation, 2 These names are used, without any attempt at theological accuracy, as those which will most generally be understood, to point out the two oppo-ite tendencies which at this stage were no more than tendencies.