Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/82

30 3. Another antecedent ground for anticipating wants and imperfections in the English Church lies in the circumstances under which the reformation of its doctrine and worship was effected. It is now universally admitted as an axiom in ecclesiastical and political matters that sudden and violent changes must be injurious; and though our own revolution of opinion and practice was happily slower and more carefully considered than those of our neighbours, yet it was too much influenced by secular interests, sudden external events, and the will of individuals, to carry with it any vouchers for the perfection and entireness of the religious system thence emerging. The proceedings for instance of 1536, remind us at once of the dangers to which the Church was exposed, and of its providential deliverance from the worst part of them: the articles then framed being, according to Burnet, "in several places corrected and tempered by the king's" (Henry's) "own hand." Again, the precise structure of our present liturgy, so primitive and edifying in its matter, is confessedly owing to the successive and counteracting influences exerted on it, among others, by Bucer and Queen Elizabeth. The Church did not make the circumstances under which it found itself, and therefore is free from the responsibility of imperfections to which these gave rise. These imperfections followed in two ways. First, the hurry and confusion of the times led, as has been said, to a settlement of religion incomplete and defective: secondly, the people, not duly apprehending even what was soundly propounded as being new to them, and unable to digest healthy food after long desuetude, gave a false meaning to it, went into opposite extremes, and fashioned into unseemly habits and practices those principles which in themselves conveyed a wholesome and edifying doctrine. These considerations cannot fairly be taken in disparagement of the celebrated men who were the instruments of Providence in the work, and who doubtless felt far more keenly than is here expressed the perplexities of their situation; but they will serve perhaps to reconcile our minds to our circumstances in these latter ages of the Church, and will cherish in us a sobriety of mind, salutary in itself, and calculated more than any thing else to arm us against the arguments of Rome,