THE REFORMATION | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, March 10, 1885.

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 10. Whole No. 1605.

THE REFORMATION.

THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.—The struggle between the old and new religion lasted longer and raged more fearfully in England and Scotland than on the continent, and continued in successive shocks even down to the end of the 17th century; for Puritanism was a second reformation. But it left in the end a very strong impression upon the character of the nation, and affected deeply its political and social institutions. In theology, English Protestantism was dependent upon the continental reform, especially the ideas and principles of Calvin; but it displayed greater practical energy and power of organization. It was from the start a political as well as a religious movement, and hence it afforded a wider scope to the corrupting influence of selfish ambition and violent passion than the reformation in Germany and Switzerland; but it passed also through severer trials and persecutions. In the English reformation we distinguish five periods.

The first period of this great revolution witnessed the abolition of the authority of the Roman papacy under Henry VIII. This was merely a negative and destructive process, which removed the outward obstruction and prepared the way for the reform. Henry VIII. quarrelled with the pope, not on religious or theological, but purely personal and selfish grounds, because the pope properly refused his consent to his divorce from Catharine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. He still remained in doctrine and religious sentiment a Roman Catholic to the end of his life, the only point of radical difference being the royal supremacy. He simply substituted a domestic for a foreign, and a political for an ecclesiastical papacy, and punished with equal severity Protestant as well as Roman Catholic dissenters, who dared to doubt his supreme headship of the Church of England. But while he thus destroyed the power of the pope and monasticism in England, a far deeper and more important movement went on among the people under the influence of the revised productions of Wycliffe and the Lollards, the writings of the continental reformers, and the English version of the Scriptures commenced by Tyndale, carried on by Coverdale and Rogers, and revised by Cranmer.

The second period embraces the reign of Edward VI., and contains the positive introduction of the reformation by the co-operation mainly of the Duke of Somerset, protector and regent during the king’s minority, and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer was assisted in the work by Ridley and Latimer, and by several Reformed divines from the continent whom he called to England, especially Martin Bucer, of Strasburg. Calvin’s advice also was solicited by Somerset. The most important works of this period, and in fact of the whole English reformation next to the English version of the Bible, are the forty-two articles of religion (subsequently reduced to thirty-nine), or a new and moderately Calvinistic confession of faith, and the “Book of Common Prayer,” or a new directory of worship in the vernacular tongue, on the basis of the ancient Latin service, but with essential changes. These two standards of public doctrine and public worship have retained a remarkable hold upon the English nation to this day.

The third period is the reign of queen Mary, and presents to us the unsuccessful attempt of that queen and her friend, Cardinal Pole, made archbishop of Canterbury after the deposition of Cranmer, to undo the reformation and to restore the Roman Catholic religion and the authority of the pope. This Catholic interim did more to consolidate the reformation in England than Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth. Hundreds of martyrs fertilized the Protestant soil in this short reign, among them the three British reformers, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, who were publicly burned at Oxford in 1556. Many others fled to the continent, where they were hospitably received and brought into closer contact with the Reformed churches of Switzerland and Germany.

The fourth period is the restoration and permanent establishment of the Anglican reformation during the long reign of Elizabeth. The Roman Catholic hierarchy was replaced by a Protestant, and the articles of religion and the common prayer book of the reign of Edward were introduced again after having been submitted to a revision. The ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown was likewise renewed, but under a modified form, the queen refusing the title “supreme head” of the church of England, and choosing in its place the less objectionable title “supreme governor.” The convocation and parliament readily sanctioned all these changes; but the Anglican church as established by Elizabeth was semi-Catholic in its form of prelatical government and liturgical worship, a sort of via media between Rome and Geneva. It suited the policy of the court and the majority of the English people, but was offensive to the severer school of strict Calvinists who had returned from their continental exile. Hence the agitation in the bosom of the reformed church of England, and the growing conflict between the Episcopalian majority and the Puritanic minority. Elizabeth’s reign was equally intolerant against Puritan as against papal dissenters, and passed the severest penal laws against both. But while the Catholic party was almost annihilated in England, the Puritan party grew more powerful under the successors of Elizabeth, and succeeded in overthrowing the dynasty of the Stuarts, and even the Episcopalian establishment, although the latter revived from the shock.

These troubles and agitations constitute the fifth period in the history of English Protestantism, which in some respects is the most important and interesting, but lies beyond the age of the reformation proper.

THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND.—The first impulse to the reformation in Scotland proceeded from Germany and Switzerland. Copies of the writings of the continental reformers and of Tyndale’s English Testament found their way to the far north. The first preacher and martyr of Protestantism in that country was Patrick Hamilton, a youth of royal blood, and for some time a student at Wittenberg and Marburg, who was condemned to death by Archbishop Beaton and burned at the stake. The movement gradually increased in spite of persecution, especially after the rupture of England with the pope, and was carried to a successful conclusion under the guidance of John Knox, the Luther of Scotland. He was a disciple and admirer of John Calvin, with whom he spent several years during the reign of the Catholic Mary. He returned to his native country after the accession of Elizabeth, resolved to reform the Scotch church after the model of the church of Geneva, which he pronounced to be “the most perfect school of Christ since the days of the apostles.” After a short civil war, the parliament introduced the reformation, adopted a Calvinistic confession of faith, and prohibited under severe penalties the exercise of the Roman Catholic worship. The first “Book of Discipline” was soon after issued, which gave the new church a complete Presbyterian organization, culminating in a general assembly of ministers and elders, and the mode of worship was reduced to the greatest simplicity. These reforms, however, were all introduced without the royal sanction, and during the vacancy of the throne. When, therefore, the unfortunate Mary Stuart, of French education, tastes, and manners, and in no sympathy whatever with the public opinion then ruling in Scotland, ascended the throne, she made an attempt to restore the Roman Catholic Religion, to which she was sincerely devoted. But her own imprudences and the determined resistance of the nation frustrated her plans, and after her flight to England Protestantism was again declared the only religion of Scotland, and received formal legal sanction under the regency of Murray, Queen Mary’s half brother, during the minority of James I. of England.—American Cyclopædia.