The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 - Thomas Babington Macaulay (novel books to read TXT) 📗

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blessing. The leading strings, which preserve and uphold the

infant, would impede the fullgrown man. And so the very means by

which the human mind is, in one stage of its progress, supported

and propelled, may, in another stage, be mere hindrances. There

is a season in the life both of an individual and of a society,

at which submission and faith, such as at a later period would be

justly called servility and credulity, are useful qualities. The

child who teachably and undoubtingly listens to the instructions

of his elders is likely to improve rapidly. But the man who

should receive with childlike docility every assertion and dogma

uttered by another man no wiser than himself would become

contemptible. It is the same with communities. The childhood of

the European nations was passed under the tutelage of the clergy.

The ascendancy of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendancy

which naturally and properly belongs to intellectual superiority.

The priests, with all their faults, were by far the wisest

portion of society. It was, therefore, on the whole, good that

they should be respected and obeyed. The encroachments of the

ecclesiastical power on the province of the civil power produced

much more happiness than misery, while the ecclesiastical power

was in the hands of the only class that had studied history,

philosophy, and public law, and while the civil power was in the

hands of savage chiefs, who could not read their own grants and

edicts. But a change took place. Knowledge gradually spread among

laymen. At the commencement of the sixteenth century many of them

were in every intellectual attainment fully equal to the most

enlightened of their spiritual pastors. Thenceforward that

dominion, which, during the dark ages, had been, in spite of many

abuses, a legitimate and salutary guardianship, became an unjust

and noxious tyranny.


From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire to

the time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church

of Rome had been generally favourable to science to civilisation,

and to good government. But, during the last three centuries, to

stunt the growth of the human mind has been her chief object.

Throughout Christendom, whatever advance has been made in

knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life, has

been made in spite of her, and has everywhere been in inverse

proportion to her power. The loveliest and most fertile provinces

of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in poverty, in

political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while Protestant

countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism, have been

turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of a

long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets.

Whoever, knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what,

four hundred years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the

country round Rome with the country round Edinburgh, will be able

to form some judgment as to the tendency of Papal domination. The

descent of Spain, once the first among monarchies, to the lowest

depths of degradation, the elevation of Holland, in spite of many

natural disadvantages, to a position such as no commonwealth so

small has ever reached, teach the same lesson. Whoever passes in

Germany from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant principality, in

Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant canton, in

Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant county, finds that

he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of civilisation. On

the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails. The

Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the

Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The Roman Catholics

of Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round

them is in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The

French have doubtless shown an energy and an intelligence which,

even when misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a

great people. But this apparent exception, when examined, will be

found to confirm. the rule; for in no country that is called

Roman Catholic, has the Roman Catholic Church, during several

generations, possessed so little authority as in France. The

literature of France is justly held in high esteem throughout the

world. But if we deduct from that literature all that belongs to

four parties which have been, on different grounds, in rebellion

against the Papal domination, all that belongs to the

Protestants, all that belongs to the assertors of the Gallican

liberties, all that belongs to the Jansenists, and all that

belongs to the philosophers, how much will be left?


It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman

Catholic religion or to the Reformation. For the amalgamation of

races and for the abolition of villenage, she is chiefly indebted

to the influence which the priesthood in the middle ages

exercised over the laity. For political and intellectual freedom,

and for all the blessings which political and intellectual

freedom have brought in their train, she is chiefly indebted to

the great rebellion of the laity against the priesthood.


The struggle between the old and the new theology in our country

was long, and the event sometimes seemed doubtful. There were two

extreme parties, prepared to act with violence or to suffer with

stubborn resolution. Between them lay, during a considerable

time, a middle party, which blended, very illogically, but by no

means unnaturally, lessons learned in the nursery with the

sermons of the modern evangelists, and, while clinging with

fondness to all observances, yet detested abuses with which those

observances were closely connected. Men in such a frame of mind

were willing to obey, almost with thankfulness, the dictation of

an able ruler who spared them the trouble of judging for

themselves, and, raising a firm and commanding voice above the

uproar of controversy, told them how to worship and what to

believe. It is not strange, therefore, that the Tudors should

have been able to exercise a great influence on ecclesiastical

affairs; nor is it strange that their influence should, for the

most part, have been exercised with a view to their own interest.


Henry the Eighth attempted to constitute an Anglican Church

differing from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the

supremacy, and on that point alone. His success in this attempt

was extraordinary. The force of his character, the singularly

favourable situation in which he stood with respect to foreign

powers, the immense wealth which the spoliation of the abbeys

placed at his disposal, and the support of that class which still

halted between two Opinions, enabled him to bid defiance to both

the extreme parties, to burn as heretics those who avowed the

tenets of the Reformers, and to hang as traitors those who owned

the authority of the Pope. But Henry's system died with him. Had

his life been prolonged, he would have found it difficult to

maintain a position assailed with equal fury by all who were

zealous either for the new or for the old opinions. The ministers

who held the royal prerogatives in trust for his infant son could

not venture to persist in so hazardous a policy; nor could

Elizabeth venture to return to it. It was necessary to make a

choice. The government must either submit to Rome, or must obtain

the aid of the Protestants. The government and the Protestants

had only one thing in common, hatred of the Papal power. The

English Reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on

the Continent. They unanimously condemned as Antichristian

numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly

adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned. Many felt a

strong repugnance even to things indifferent which had formed

part of the polity or ritual of the mystical Babylon. Thus Bishop

Hooper, who died manfully at Gloucester for his religion, long

refused to wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop Ridley, a martyr

of still greater renown, pulled down the ancient altars of his

diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be administered in the

middle of churches, at tables which the Papists irreverently

termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the clerical garb

to be a stage dress, a fool's coat, a relique of the Amorites,

and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate such

degrading absurdities. Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about

accepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the mummery

of consecration. Bishop Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that

the Church of England would propose to herself the Church of

Zurich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop

Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to

the Papists, and that the chief officers of the purified church

should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that none

of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the

Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general sense

of that party had been followed. the work of reform would have

been carried on as unsparingly in England as in Scotland.


But, as the government needed the support of the protestants, so

the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was

therefore given up on both sides: an union was effected; and the

fruit of that union was the Church of England.


To the peculiarities of this great institution, and to the strong

passions which it has called forth in the minds both of friends

and of enemies, are to be attributed many of the most important

events which have, since the Reformation, taken place in our

country; nor can the secular history of England be at all

understood by us, unless we study it in constant connection with

the history of her ecclesiastical polity.


The man who took the chief part in settling the condition, of the

alliance which produced the Anglican Church was Archbishop

Cranmer. He was the representative of both the parties which, at

that time, needed each other's assistance. He was at once a

divine and a courtier. In his character of divine he was

perfectly ready to go as far in the way of change as any Swiss or

Scottish Reformer. In his character of courtier he was desirous

to preserve that organisation which had, during many ages,

admirably served the purposes of the Bishops of Rome, and might

be expected now to serve equally well the purposes of the English

Kings and of their ministers. His temper and his understanding,

eminently fitted him to act as mediator. Saintly in his

professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for nothing,

bold in speculation, a coward and a timeserver in action, a

placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he was in every way

qualified to arrange the terms of the coalition between the

religious and the worldly enemies of Popery.


To this day the constitution, the doctrines, and the services