do the laws of your Grace's realm dispose men unto justice, to peace, and other true and perfect holiness; wherefore I did conclude for a general rule, that the people ought to observe them as they do the laws of your Grace's realm, and with no more opinion of holiness or remission of sin, than the other common laws of your Grace's realm." 12

If such was the view touching the laws and ceremonies of the hitherto established Roman Catholic Church, the royal Church of England could take no other view of its own laws and ceremonies, especially since in the last resort they emanated from the same law-giving power, to wit, the King in parliament, from which sprang the common laws of the realm. Obviously that law-making power, however supreme and royal, was human, and none of its enactments could make or mar, or affect directly, the salvation of a single soul. It could not remit sins or condemn a soul to hell. Temporal penalties must be relied upon to compel the payment of tithes, for example; for which the parish priests, of the former Roman Catholic Church, had been wont to "curse," with all the supposed consequences.13

Nevertheless, save for authority over the destinies of souls beyond the grave- or beyond the stake with respect to this world of speech and writing and visible. conduct, the Church of England under the authority of parliament and the headship of the King, continued to exercise the functions of the Church of Rome. Moreover, from the novelty or anomaly of its position as in fact a newly established national and independent, if not separate, church, it would be obliged to declare the principles of its adoption of the contents of Christian truth, and even to constitute de novo some body of Anglican doctrine. This state-church (there might be difficulty in distinguishing its two constituents) necessarily partook of the character of its political source and sanction; if it emanated from the King in parliament, and had the King for its head, did it not in some sense include its head and that which it emanated from? The King was soon to

12 Ellis's Letters, &c, Third series, Vol. III, pp. 23 sqq.

13 With reluctance, we may suppose, on the part of the good priests, at least. As Chaucer says: "Full loth he was to cursen for his tithes."

preside in Convocation, through his vicar Thomas Crumwell, and masterfully direct its action. This English Church, inclusive of its parliamentary source and kingly headship, was not merely lawful and established; it was enunciatory and law-giving. It was law; and law means obedience, either voluntary, or when withheld, enforced. The principle of law, with its complement of obedience, meant necessarily conformity, conformity to norm; and so meant uniformity. That also accorded with the spirit of the laws common to all the realm, through which England had become a nation.

Further, out of the necessities of the nature of this Church proceeded the character and process of its development and self-formulation. Its origin was in law and institution; it emanated from the command and power of the King in parliament. It did not arise from any moving conception of abuses and the need of definite reform; far less, did it spring from an idea, such as that of justification by faith. Therefore its evolution and further progress could not be as a leap from thought to another thought new born, as light signals flash from peak to peak. That had been the way of Luther's development. The official English remaking or reformation of the Church must proceed through official command and adaptation or modification or abolishment of institutions; and through enunciated formulae, of doctrine to be sure, but more generally of observance. It would thus attain to a body of outer conformity; which might have sincere and rational grounds for such men as were sincere and rational, and yet would proceed or function through state oath and formal utterance and the fulfilment of a ceremonial painfully defined.

So it was also a very practical affair,- the English Church and the course of its formation. It moved from the decision of one point of practice or doctrine to another, often impelled not merely by the exigencies of the domestic situation, but by foreign diplomatic opportunities or dangers. Likewise its supporters and opponents within the Kingdom would be moved by points of practice and by ceremonial preference: a question of lay or

ecclesiastical jurisdiction might attract a man, or repel him through his attachment to old practices: and so his taste in vestments or no-vestments; and whether he preferred an altar or a communion-table, and where it should be placed. Each point of practice, every element of ceremonial, or its abolition, represented some conviction or idea, and therefore was a symbol. But more really and directly the moving or repelling influence was habit and association with the actual fact itself, rather than a consideration of the spiritual validity of what it stood for; and whether taken as a symbol or a fact, it was English. If its representation of spiritual truth was rather veiled than naked, it should at all events be seemly, entirely decent and respectable. This might represent much to Englishmen, who have always done a good deal of thinking in terms of the decencies of life.

IV

" 14

We turn for further illustration to the courses of events. In November 1534 a short act was passed making the King unqualifiedly "the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England.' It provided that he should "have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm . . . all honours, dignities, pre-eminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits and commodities to the said dignity of supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining." It granted to the King, his heirs and successors full power and authority from time to time to repress, reform, restrain and amend all errors, heresies and abuses which might lawfully be reformed and restrained by “any manner spiritual authority or jurisdiction . . to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquillity of this realm; any usage, custom, foreign law, etc., . . . to the contrary notwithstanding." There was passed at the same time a confirmatory act of succession, giving the form of oath, and declaring that it

14 It omitted the words "so far as the law of Christ allows."

should be sworn to by all the subjects of the King; also an act specifically making it treason to utter speech or writing derogatory to the king or queen, their title and dignities and orthodoxy.15

The executions of More and Fisher followed, and of certain heroic Carthusians, for refusing to take the oath. They would have sworn to the succession itself decreed by the act; but the oath involved repudiation of papal authority and approval of Henry's divorce, to which their consciences would not permit them to assent. On the other hand, King and Church vindicated their orthodoxy, and the decency and order of the realm, by burning a goodly number of Anabaptists. Henry was still as particular touching his doctrinal orthodoxy as he had been in those previous years when his demands upon the pope were progressing from insistency, through minatory pressure, to mortal conflict in the end. He had then sanctioned the burning of heretics more respectable than these rowdy Anabaptists.

The King, as head of the Church made Thomas Crumwell his vicar-general; and a commission was issued to him to hold a general visitation of churches, monasteries and collegiate bodies. There followed, through a lengthy process of investigation, report, and parliamentary action, the famous suppression of the monasteries, and the transfer of their lands and plate to the royal exchequer. About half of these huge domains were granted by the King to a number of nobles and influential commoners, who had aided in these measures, and whose support was thereby won permanently for the throne. These holdings became a vested interest calculated to rivet the royal Church upon the realm. There might be and were remonstrances and murmurs and revolts 16 against these changes in the Church; but they broke down before the power of the King and the strength of vested interests. Even the Papal restoration under Mary did not dare dis

15 Gee and Hardy, o. c. p. 243-247.

16 For instance the famous "Pilgrimage of Grace" which embroiled the northern counties in the years 1537 and 1538. It is elaborately treated in The Pilgrimage of Grace, M. H. & Ruth Dodds. 2 Vols. (Cambridge,

turb the last, but confirmed the grants of abbey and such like lands in the hands of the possessors. 17 The suppression of the monasteries, cruel as it was and unseemly in its details, liberated England from a spiritual incubus. Good, bad, or indifferent as these foundations were, the homes of lethargy and immorality, or well conducted establishments, which incidentally paid the expenses of many a scholar at the universities, they were no longer suited to the life, the progress, and the secularization of England, and the laicizing of her government and judiciary.

Another measure of less material, but great spiritual, effect, was the establishment of Biblical studies at the universities, and the removal of Duns Scotus and his like, together with the Canon Law from the curriculum.18 For the Canon law was the very rationale of the papacy. To return to the formulation of doctrine by the Church. The early Christian Church lived and breathed amid pagan acceptances and a conglomerate of pagan-Christian notions. Its formulation of dogma proceeded largely through disclaimer and counter-statement. Now the Church of England, based upon this ancient dogmatic formulation and surrounded by an abundance of contemporary Christian truth and error - Catholic, Lutheran, Zwinglian, not to mention indigenous Lollardy was to proceed through selection and adoption, mainly. The influence of the tyrant theologian on the throne was strong, over-mastering usually. He had still plenty of thoughts upon theology. Beneath his altered views the conceit of his Assertio septem sacramentorum against Luther still puffed him up. He was no unfit representative of his people; his thoughts, his opinions, his selfassertion might be theirs, for he could listen closely for his people's voices; and as for their attitude toward religion and its royal exponent, the remark of the Venetian ambassador is to the point: "With the English, the example and authority of the Sovereign is everything, and

17 See the second act of Repeal of Philip and Mary, 1554. Gee and Hardy, o. c. pp. 385, 394.

18 See the sprightly letter of Layton to Crumwell, 1535. Ellis Letters, 2nd Series, Vol. II, p. 60.