THE LEADING PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION.

WHEN last we endeavoured to set before our readers some of the indicia by which, in our opinion, the true history of the Reformation is to be guided, our remarks were confined chiefly to the constitutional phase of that great course of events. We propose this month to make a few analogous observations upon the reformation of the doctrinal system of the Church of England at the same period.

There is an a priori view of this phase of our ecclesiastical history which has received very little attention from historical writers: or at least very little of that attention which would have prepared them for a just estimation of things in their subsequent course. When a change is made, and we want to record the history of the change, and "all about it," the first question to be asked,-at least when we get beyond the region of bare facts—is 'Why was there a change at all?' We once knew a cynical fellow who was the terror of all his feminine acquaintances on account of an inconvenient habit which he had cultivated of always asking them "the reason why" when they indulged in the illogical assertions and opinions to which the more critical half of humanity declares ladies are so prone and really we cannot but think the English Church would have been improved in her character, if she had years ago been subjected to this triliteral form of persecution instead of being allowed so long to act on theories of "instinctive feeling." If a thinking man, reading for the first time, the history of the English Reformation, were to have no other account set before him than that which has been stereotyped from the pages of our ordinary writers, one of the most puzzling reflections that this account would raise in his mind would be that a whole nation, (including many intellectual persons in an intellectual age) should so entirely change its religious opinions in the manner in which it is commonly represented to have done: and that this change should have been made on so very superficial an investigation of principles. He would probably come to the conclusion that the age of the Reformation, with all its intellect, was a very light-minded one, and much more open to the influence of prejudice than reason: but his conclusions though justly formed from his historical informants would be very decidedly wrong at least as regards the intellectual Churchmen of the day-and he would require to be told that no history was ever so superficially written as that of the doctrinal Reformation in the Church of England.

We will then endeavour to trace out more justly the outline of these changes; and this, not in a self-confident spirit as if we were VOL. XXII.-AUGUST, 1860. 2 Y

correcting all who have trodden the same path of history before us; but rather with the view of submitting our own theories on the subject to the judgment and consideration of thoughtful readers.

It is usual to carry back the "first dawn of the Reformation" to the days of Wicliffe and the Lollards, on the hypothesis that the subsequent acts of the Church in the sixteenth century were the proper complement of the Wicliffite revolution attempted in the fourteenth. There is not, however, as far as we know, the least ground for supposing that the leading Reformers were at all influenced by the writings of Wicliffe; nor indeed that these writings were at all well known to them. Subsequent centuries have disentombed this sturdy Protestant from the oblivion into which he had fallen ; and his name has become so familiar that it seems impossible to many that it could have been otherwise than a household word in the times we are speaking of. But this was not the case, as we believe Mr. Froude will be as ready to maintain as we are ourselves. With his death, nearly all Wicliffe's influence for good passed away; and whatever religion there may have been in the would-be reformer himself, his followers have little more claim to the name of reformers than the Chartists of modern days have. To our mind the small results which followed from Wicliffe's religious teaching and the troubles that ensued from his political teaching prove how little of real solid value there was in the agitation of which he was the head; how little, in fact, it was supported by Divine Providence. His great enmity against the evils of the monastic system was by no means peculiar to himself, for there were always wise men who saw that the abuses of that system by some were so gross, that they placed the whole body of those who lived without abuse under it in danger, as well as themselves. And, in short, very little of Wicliffe's survived his death, except the very dangerous principles on political matters which he held rather as theoretical crotchets than in any other way, but which his followers (including Wat Tyler's mob of 100,000) would gladly have carried into practice. The people who looked to him as their teacher were simply those who were attracted by those levelling doctrines, which seemed to them the remedy for the miseries entailed on a suffering nation by the wars of rival sovereigns. The religious peculiarities, which were to him, the very substance of his system, were to them mere makeweights and while the one were dropped as soon as his personal influence was withdrawn, (or maintained in a distorted form by some as a cloak for the more severely punishable rebellion which they disguised) the others took deep root, and were the real cause of much of that licence by which the Reformation was disfigured.

We are not disposed, therefore, to fall in with the popular notion that the Reformation of doctrine in the sixteenth century was built up on Wicliffe's principles, or had grown out of his work.

There was no doubt, a living tradition of his name in connection with the Lollards, and with the anti-Roman party in general; but we do not believe that he contributed in any appreciable degree to that stirring up of men's minds which resulted in the separation of Rome from England, and the leaving the latter to stand alone among the Catholic Churches of Europe. If we ask, therefore, why the Reformers thought at all about any review or re-modelling of the doctrinal standards and usages of the Church of England, it will not do to answer that it was because Wicliffe had broken the ground for them and showed them the way.

elsewhere for the reason.

We must look

And in the reformation of doctrine as in the constitutional reformation we find further indications of the over-ruling Hand, which was fashioning anew the destinies of our Church and country. It is not possible to point to one individual actively concerned in the transactions of the day, and say that the doctrines of the Reformed Church were an exact reflex of his mind. But it is possible to show that the general tendency of events in their relation to the Church was such as very exactly to coincide with the result produced; and we cannot fail to see in such a coincidence an indication of the real Power which was at work, ordering the course of this world for the good of His Church, raising up men to do His work, and while they were doing only that protecting them from harm; placing barriers in the way of those who would have hindered all change, and suffering the removal of His own instruments where they sought to carry changes beyond the limits of His unchanging truth.

The truest way of philosophising history is to endeavour first of all to trace out the course of Providential arrangement in the temporary character and results of actual events: and if they are long past, in their subsequent results also. Let us apply this principle to the case before us, and it will be found we believe that the following causes contributed principally to suggest and to cause a review and reconstruction of our doctrinal system.

1. A necessity for services in the vernacular had been developing itself strongly for some time, with, probably, a great accession of strength since the general adoption of the printing-press. To the Church belongs the glory of first using that art by which the intellectual progress of mankind has been so wonderfully accelerated, the first printed book being the Latin Bible printed at Mentz in 1456, and afterwards named (from the Mazarin Library at Paris, the place of its first disinterment in the last century) the Mazarin Bible and the second known, a Psalter printed in the year following. Though many religious books were printed in Germany during the following twenty years, the art was not introduced into England until 1474, but it is probable that portions of the Bible in Latin, the Breviary and Missal (of the latter of which early

printed copies exist) were among its first productions. These, printed at first in small number, must have at once suggested a very large increase in the number of copies; and the usual reaction of supply and demand would be certain to promote their circulation. So wide a circulation of books used in the face of all the people week by week must as certainly have suggested to many minds that the people at large had an interest in them, and that the new art of printing should be made really useful to them in the practice of their religion. Indeed, we not long since discovered two small hornbooks underneath some ancient chancel stalls, on one of which there yet remained portions of an English printed version of the Creed, the LORD's Prayer, and the Ave Maria of a very early date, and this in a quite obscure village church, dependent, at the Reformation, on the monastery of Rumsey. These portions of the service had been used by the people in English for a long period, and for a longer, in Anglo-Saxon; and as is well known, the Litany was also commonly in use by them in their own language for at least a hundred years before the Reformation. The evident anxiety of the Church, therefore, to use the new art of printing, and the growing literary intelligence of the people were combining together to make a Vernacular Bible and Prayer Book an absolute necessity of the age, the introduction of which no opposition could long hinder. We understand that vernacular services have lately become quite common among English Roman Catholics, and we presume their introduction has arisen from the conviction that it is impossible to carry the English people with you in the use of a Liturgy written in a tongue unknown to them. It is a marvel that when once a step was made in that direction the point should not have been at once yielded, and as much alacrity shown in the use of the native language as soon as it had really come into existence, as in the use of the printing press. The use of an universal language by the Church, when the dialects of Europe had not yet taken a settled form, or when, as in England, several different tongues were spoken by the several classes of society, was probably wise and proper; but it is simple folly to censure the change of language which was effected in our services at the Reformation when that anomaly had passed away and a new state of things had arisen. The careful and thorough translation of the Holy Bible, and (with its re-construction) the translation of our Prayer Book was no act of man's wilfulness, enmity, or self-love. It was an act done in obedience to a necessity that had arisen in the providential course of events by which the Church of England was to be fitted for a mighty destiny; in fulfilment of which the Church and language of England are to do for the last ages of the Christian world, what the Roman church and the Latin tongue did for the first. The Church itself was henceforth to have a peculiarity of character not evident in times when so many of its distinctive features were dropped, as

in the last age, but evident enough at the Reformation and now. It was to be Catholic, yet not Roman Catholic, in doctrine, ceremony, and discipline; no longer bearing the impress of the old effete Empire. In this point of view we cannot but regard the step now under consideration as embodying a great idea; for the language then so new and so limited in its uses is one which these later ages have proved to be capable of even greater extension than the ancient tongue of Rome itself: and from being based on the old Saxon, and yet so enriched and modified by the incorporation of foreign words, it seems to approach nearer to the requirements of an universal language than any other, and is already spoken by a larger proportion of the civilized world, than perhaps any one language has been since the confusion of Babel.

The most important step of changing the ecclesiastical language of the country was then one which was both necessary for the times according to man's wisdom, and also one which held a prominent place, as subsequent history proves, in the providential mission of the Church of England. It may be that the full value of the change has not yet even been developed, but that missionary work will make very much more rapid progress when the use of our own language as the vehicle of native thought both in the offices of devotion, and also in ordinary instruction, shall be made a first principle of Indian and other churches.

2. The very means which had been taken by Rome to secure uniformity of doctrine in all churches in communion with her, was also that by which a review of her standard would be provoked. Every thing was made to rest, officially at least, on the mere authority of Rome. The Pope was the final point of appeal in all disputed cases, and the fountain of dogma in every instance of doubt. The Pope had decreed what was orthodox, and what was not, no matter if he contradicted his predecessors,-causa finita

est.

When men's minds were shaken in their confidence towards the Pope's supremacy, (and, as we have already shown, it would have been most unreasonable if they had not been so shaken,) then all that had been made to rest so entirely on the same authority began also to be matter of question. It was, at last, clearly seen that a great wrong had been done to the Church universal by the usurpation of an authority which had no foundation in reason or right; and what more natural than for men to ask, Is he who has made so great a mistake, or done so great an injustice in this matter of the supremacy certainly so incapable of error, of untruth, even of misbelief in matters of doctrine? It was impossible for those who felt strongly on the constitutional question, as we now call it, of the Church,—and every clear-sighted and honest man did feel strongly about it when once stirred, however much he might have acquiesced in the established order of things before, it was impossible, we repeat, for such men to have the same religious